South Carolina women's basketball: Five Things to Watch - Texas

South Carolina faces SEC foe Texas in a non-conference game on Thanksgiving for the Players Era Championship. Here’s what to watch for.

1. Fatigue

South Carolina got back to a full complement of 10 players just in time for the back-to-back games in Las Vegas. 

The Gamecocks are at a disadvantage from having played the late game on Wednesday, but the turnaround is over 24 hours, so it’s not as significant as, for example, playing the late game in the semifinals of the SEC Tournament. (Plus, the teams are literally a five-minute walk from their hotel rooms instead of a bus ride.)

South Carolina should be fresher than Texas. The Longhorns have three injured players, Bryanna Preston, Ashton Judd, and Aaliyah Crump, and played just seven players on Wednesday. Rori Harmon played all 40 minutes, while Jordan Lee and Madison Booker officially played 39 minutes. 

On the other hand, only Joyce Edwards (32 minutes), Madina Okot, and Tessa Johnson (31 minutes each) played over 30 minutes for South Carolina.

2. Battle of the Bigs

Games like this are why the Gamecocks went after Madina Okot in the offseason. 

South Carolina had no answer for Kyla Oldacre and Taylor Jones last season. The pair combined to average 14.8 points and 12.8 rebounds against South Carolina. The Gamecocks were able to keep both from going off in the same game three out of four times. Not surprisingly, the game where both scored in double figures was the game South Carolina lost.

Jones exhausted her eligibility, but now Oldacre pairs with Breya Cunningham, who has seamlessly taken over Jones’ role. Together, they average over 22 points and 13 rebounds.

That isn’t the only reason South Carolina brought in Okot (finding someone to face Lauren Betts, who lost on Wednesday, was another reason), but it is one of the main reasons. This is the biggest test of the season for Okot, who has been everything South Carolina had hoped for so far. Okt and Joyce Edwards, who excelled against Texas last season, seem to be flourishing at the right time.

“We’re a high-low basketball team,” Staley said. “We involve our post players a lot to be decision-makers. A high-low pass is one of those decisions that we didn’t get much out of the two of them. We just started being calculating and making them do it with defense, without defense. Now we’re starting to do it in the games.”

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3. Point guards

The matchups at center and wing (Madison Booker) are the obvious matchups to watch. But the point guard matchup might be the key to the game. Rori Harmon scored 26 points in the Longhorns’ win over the Bruins, and she hit most of the key shots down the stretch.

It’s going to be a lot harder for Harmon to score against Raven Johnson’s long-armed defense. Harmon is especially good at getting into the lane and hitting fadeaway jumpers. That won’t be easy against Johnson.

4. The Other Game

No matter which two teams played in the losers’ game, there would be a lot on the line. Two losses, even to quality teams on a neutral court, are going to come up in March when the selection committee is seeding teams.

UCLA played like the team that was battling jet lag, not the only team at the Players Era Championship playing on local time. Duke played like, well, Duke: incapable of playing a complete game and getting out of its own way.

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5. Scouting the Longhorns

Texas entered Wednesday’s game against UCLA relatively untested, while the Bruins had already knocked off no. 6 Oklahoma and no. 11 North Carolina. If you were told beforehand that one team would lead much of the game by 20, most people would have assumed it would be UCLA.

A lot of UCLA’s issues were self-inflicted: disorganized offense, poor transition defense, and forgetting they have Lauren Betts on their team. Those are recurring problems for the Bruins when they are pressured, but Texas deserves credit for applying the pressure to begin with.

The biggest surprise about Texas’ win might be how they did it. The Texas bigs didn’t dominate; the perimeter players did. Cunningham and Oldacre combined for nine points, five rebounds, and one blocked shot. Oldacre got into quick foul trouble and never made much of an impact on the game. 

Most surprising was the Longhorns’ three-point shooting. 

Texas has shot more three-pointers this season, averaging 13.0 attempts and 4.8 makes (36.9%). Last season, they averaged just 10.4 attempts and 3.1 makes (30.1%).

That is a small, but significant, increase. In last year’s two postseason games, South Carolina defended Texas by making sure all five players had at least one foot in the paint, knowing the Longhorns wouldn’t bother taking, let alone making, shots from behind the arc. Texas might be able to make the Gamecocks pay this season.

South Carolina also has to play Texas without the Booker Blocker, Bree Hall. Hall was fantastic against Booker last season, holding her below 30% shooting. Tessa Johnson 

One thing hasn’t changed: Texas still crashes the offensive glass. The Longhorns got 16 second-chance points off of 12 offensive rebounds to make up for getting outshot but UCLA.

The Ws

Who: #2 South Carolina (7-0) vs #4 Texas (6-0)
When: 8:00 ET, Thursday, November 27
Where: Michelob Ultra Arena, Las Vegas, NV
Watch: TruTV

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