| Herald-Journal
South Carolina’s best women’s basketball lost 63-59 on Monday night in overtime in 2nd place in Connecticut. Here are five lessons from the thriller, as the USC had a chance to defeat the Huskies for the second consecutive season.
The perfect hitting on the friendly rim was decisive
When you have a touch of fire as delicate as UConn’s first-year guard, Paige Bueckers, there aren’t many hoops that don’t give your sweet streak the benefit of the doubt. She was the best player on the ground on Monday, despite her youth, and left her best for last.
Minnesota’s 5-foot-11 product scored his team’s last 13 points, including all nine in overtime to deliver almost a win in this season’s highest profile game. It closed with a 3-point pull worthy of note with 10.8 seconds remaining.
“I’m always surprised when she kicks and the ball doesn’t go in,” said UConn coach Geno Auriemma. “She is that player, that child that appears and that people talk about.”
The USC had taken a 59-56 lead with 1:55 remaining before Bueckers hit a long jump for a one point lead. Approximately 36 seconds later, she landed a shot outside the arch at the top of the key that hit the back edge, bounced right above the table before floating back into the iron and barely caught the net to freeze it.
Teammates Nika Muhl and Olivia Nelson-Ododo told reporters that they both knew it was happening, despite the intensely high jump. Bueckers was also a true believer. The Huskies scored the last seven points of the game and Bueckers converted their last three shots. The final shot was his only 3-point shot in six attempts.
“It was good when he got out of my hand, hit his back and jumped up, so I thought, ‘He has to get in,'” said Bueckers. “It looked good, I felt good, but I would say it was a very good jump.”
USC failed to find a way to fix UConn
While a freshman was leading the Huskies to victory, it was evident how much the USC lost the toughness and experience of a pair of veterans trained in playmaker Tyasha Harris and striker Mikiah Herbert Harrigan.
The young Gamecocks depended heavily on these two at key moments with an equally young squad last year, and USC failed at some crucial points in both execution and decision making in Monday’s defeat.
The USC had the ball in the final 22.4 minutes of regulation, and after goalkeeper Destanni Henderson missed a jump with five seconds left, the Gamecocks had three short strikes on the edge. Victaria Saxton’s shot was blocked before game star Aliyah Boston failed to convert two attempts, taking the game into overtime.
The Gamecocks led by one with 1:15 remaining when Boston inexplicably attempted a 3-point step back with plenty of time on the shot clock. She entered the game with only seven hits from 26 long-distance, and her 27% were the lowest among teammates who scored at least a 3.
In the next possession, Henderson dribbled quickly in traffic and lost the ball out of bounds 41 seconds from time. This led to the inauguration in which Beuckers sealed the deal.
“I thought we had made bad decisions,” said USC coach Dawn Staley. “(O) Aliyah’s retreat 3, the quick kick, the dribbling in traffic and the loss of the ball, all contributed to us not taking care of the moment.”
Bueckers shine
The game ended in a draw at 24, after a sloppy first half, during which neither team was able to enter a sustained pace of success. Bueckers had eight of her team’s 24 points from 4 to 9 shots in the first half, but she made 10 to 17 to 23 points the rest of the way. She totaled five assists and four rebounds.
Bueckers has already become the first freshman in UConn’s long and historic history to score 30 points in a row, and now she has done so in three straight.
Staley was more wordy in his praises of Bueckers’ leadership in the game, but simply said later: “She is a player who makes great moves when her number is called over and over.”
Bueckers, who joined USC’s Brea Beal as the only player to register every 45 minutes, said: “We were struggling to score at times and it was only my teammates who really opened me up. They set up like a trillion screens for me . Everything they did was incredible, and my coaches and teammates wanted me to give these pictures when it was open. “
Poorly played game that turned into suspense
The clash between the best-ranked teams in the country was much more slugfest than finesse, but the fact that none of them were able to get into a consistent flow allowed for a daring ending after being tied eight times and had seven leadership changes . The USC held the lead 25:02 against 13:44 UConn, while the game was tied by 6:14.
The USC kept UConn with 40 percent of shots, well below their average of 53 percent for the season, and the Huskies shot just 2 out of 15 from a 3-point streak. Gamecocks hit just 37 percent, hit 1 to 9 on 3 points and committed 21 spins to 17. The teams agreed to shoot 11 to 23 in free throws and USC maintained a 52-39 lead on the rebound.
“They made it difficult, they filled Aliyah’s space, but we were leaving,” said Staley. “Offensively, there was no fluidity and I think we let the moment come in front of us. We did some things that were unusual that you really don’t have enough time to make adjustments.”
Everything is still on the table
With about a month to go before the SEC tournament in Greenville, the USC (15-2, 10-0 SEC) is still well positioned to enter this event as the first seed and obtain one of the first four seeds of the NCAA tournament.
“We can always learn something from any game we play,” said Staley. “We did some good things. We recovered the ball a lot, we fell, we came back and I thought we did a great job with everyone but Paige. If we see them again, we will probably have to make some adjustments for that.
“I thought we did our job defensively. Offensively is what we had problems with. Would it have been a great game? Yes, sure, but everything else is ahead of us. Good players and good teams are able to turn the page and prepare to play on Thursday (hosting Missouri). “