COLOMBIA, SC – South Carolina coach Dawn Staley wants her best team to take a look at the big picture and know that her goals can still be achieved.
The Gamecocks, who returned to first place a few hours earlier, lost for the second time this season, with a 63-59 loss in overtime for UConn’s second place. The classification will certainly slip. The focus on the big picture, however, should be clearer for Staley’s young team.
“I know they want to win the SEC regular season, they want to win the SEC tournament, they want to win the national championship,” said Staley on Wednesday. – I think sometimes you need to peek and see exactly what’s in front of you.
South Carolina (15-2, 10-0) returns to the court on Thursday against Missouri (7-7, 3-6) in search of their 30th consecutive victory over the league’s opponents.
The Gamecocks have been 47-3 in the past two seasons, with non-conference defeats, opponents ranked in Indiana last season, and in the state of North Carolina and the Huskies this year. The last time they had consecutive defeats was in 2018-19, with defeats to Texas A&M at the close of the regular season and Arkansas in their first SEC tournament game that year.
That was before the South Carolina team’s striker Aliyah Boston and guards Zia Cooke and Brea Beal were part of the program.
“You win some, you lose some, but let’s go back to the drawing and find out everything,” said Cooke, the team’s top scorer.
There is a strong story that Gamecocks will regroup strongly. After the defeat in Indiana in November 2019, South Carolina ended the year in a 26-game winning streak that included the SEC tournament title before COVID-19 canceled the NCAA tournament.
After a 54-46 loss to No. 4 Wolfpack on December 3, South Carolina won 12 in a row before facing UConn.
“A loss is never easy to ignore,” said Boston, who averages 13.9 points and 11.5 rebounds per game. “But our goals are still ahead of us and we are going to be locked up and keep moving forward.”
The team took a break on Tuesday after returning from Connecticut, but returned to work on Wednesday anxious to get back on track.
“They are focused,” said Staley. ‘I don’t like to lose, but I also like lessons that they can only learn by losing. If you try to teach some of the things we teach today when we are winning, go in one ear and out the other.
These lessons were clearly focused on offensive execution. Staley was pleased that his team kept the Huskies with the lowest score by 63 points. His disappointment was in how many open and closed shots the Gamecocks missed.
South Carolina’s trio of titular guards at Cooke, Beal and Destanni Henderson was a combined 12 out of 39 on the field. The Gamecocks have made just two of their last 14 attempts at field goals, after a 54-50 lead with three minutes to go.
“It’s all we did on the offensive side,” said Staley. “We didn’t make them pay offensively.”
Staley believes his team will learn the lessons of defeat and use them positively in the final stretch, although the Gamecocks must still face Texas A&M number 6, Tennessee number 16 and Kentucky number 20 in their six games final.
“They are very receptive to improvement,” said Staley of his team. “They are not used to waking up with a hangover (with a loss) as we have been doing for the past two days. Just to get back to the gym and get back on track, I think we’re ready.
___
More women’s college basketball AP: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25