GREENVILLE, SC – The South Carolina women’s basketball team made history on Sunday at the Southeastern Conference tournament, as did the league with its first championship fight with black coaches: Dawn Staley and Joni Taylor from Georgia.
“What you saw gives hope to black women,” said Staley proudly.
It was the Gamecocks of seventh and second placed Staley who used a late race in the third quarter to take control and held on to beat the Lady Bulldogs ranked 16th and fourth 67-62, continuing their unprecedented six-game streak. SEC titles tournaments over seven seasons.
Taylor was disappointed with the result, although not with the statement of the two coaches. She remembers, as a high school star in Mississippi, that she never saw two black head coaches in a Power Five conference title game. Taylor, who played in Alabama from 1997 to 2001, is grateful to young people for having a different image in the future.
“You cannot dream of what you cannot see,” said Taylor, in his sixth season in Georgia.
Aliyah Boston had 27 points and 10 rebounds to lead South Carolina, which just a week earlier lost second place in the Texas A&M ranking and saw the Aggies cut nets in celebration of the SEC’s regular season title.
This time it was Gamecocks – just like in 2015, ’16, ’17, ’18 and ’20 – climbing a ladder amid the SEC’s blue, gold and white streamers and confetti to celebrate another title.
“We knew we didn’t want to lose,” said Boston, who was elected the tournament’s MVP after three double-double appearances.
The Gamecocks (22-4), twice the country’s No. 1 team this season, have struggled down the straight, with three defeats in their last seven games of the regular season. They fixed things up in style in Greenville, using big races to end Alabama on Friday and Tennessee’s number 14 on Saturday night. Against Lady Dogs, South Carolina opened a tie with a 9-0 run to close the third quarter.
Georgia closed 65-62 with Que Morrison’s 3 points with 14.4 seconds remaining, but Boston followed up with a couple of false kicks and South Carolina held on to their 14th straight win over Lady Dogs.
Destanni Henderson scored 18 points for South Carolina.
Morrison had 20 points and eight rebounds to lead Georgia, who reached the tournament final for the first time since 2004, and Jenna Staiti had 10 points and three blocks.
“It hurts,” said Staiti. “It’s not how we want it to fall. But we can put it in perspective with any team in the country.”
FINAL ACC: NC State 58, Louisville 56
GREENSBORO, NC – Wes Moore believed that the state of North Carolina was talented enough to win another Atlantic Coast Conference tournament when he brought in a graduate transfer to add some experience as a point guard.
Raina Perez certainly rewarded him for that.
Perez hit a jumper close to his left elbow with 2.1 seconds remaining to help third-placed and second-placed NC State to beat Louisville, fifth-placed and best-placed, securing Wolfpack’s first consecutive titles in the program’s history. His shot broke a tied game in a tense end – NC State (20-2) and the Cardinals (23-3) were locked in a game of possession in the last 4 and a half minutes.
“This team is very tough and they just find a way to win,” said Moore, 63, who was a coach at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga from 1998 to 2013 before taking over from NC State.
Elissa Cunane was named MVP of the tournament after scoring 27 points in the quarterfinals against Virginia Tech, 23 in the semifinals against Georgia Tech and 20 on Sunday.
“Winning once was difficult. Winning twice was more difficult,” she said of Wolfpack’s repeat.
Perez, a player at last year’s Big West Conference at Cal State Fullerton, was hired to replace veteran owner Aislinn Konig, MVP of last year’s ACC tournament.
In the winning move, the 5-foot-4 Perez initially started to pass to Cunane by rolling onto the track, but she had to pull the ball back when the pass was not there. Instead, she set foot on the ground and got rid of six consecutive second trimester mistakes to cleanly bury the sweater.
The Cardinals had a final chance, going under their own basket with a second left, but Dana Evans, twice ACC player of the year, missed a 3-point attempt after a pass from Kianna Smith. Evans finished with 15 points to lead Louisville, who missed five of their last six shots in the past 3 ½ minutes.
FINAL SOCON: Mercer 60, Wofford 38
ASHEVILLE, NC – Jaron Dougherty had 19 points, 11 rebounds and six steals, Amoria Neal-Tysor added 16 points and second-placed Bears took advantage of a 28-0 run to pass fourth-ranked Terriers and win an automatic bid for the 64 teams NCAA field.
Wofford (13-11) made history on the show by playing the Southern Conference title game for the first time, but Mercer (19-6) won the league tournament for the third time in four years. The exception in this stretch was last season, but the Bears didn’t have to face defending champion Samford in the tournament this year – after being swept away during the regular season – because the Bulldogs with the best seeds were defeated in the first round on Thursday for East Tennessee State, who then lost to Wofford in Friday’s semifinals.
Neal-Tysor was voted the most prominent player in the tournament after leading Mercer to double-digit wins against Western Carolina and Furman in the first two rounds, scoring 27 and a career record of 34 points. She fought in the first half against Wofford, scoring five points out of 2 out of 8 shots, but then made four baskets and scored nine points during an 18-0 run at the start of the third period. Dougherty scored six points during Mercer’s 8-0 series to close the first half with a 27-18 lead.
Jada Lewis added 13 points for Mercer, and Shannon Titus caught 10 rebounds and blocked four shots.
Helen Matthews scored nine points for Wofford, who scored just 24.5%. The Terriers scored just 24 points in three quarters – Mercer’s 28 consecutive points scored the second and third periods – and went without goals for more than 14 minutes.