South Carolina women's basketball: Friday Feelings - Welcome to conference play

Monday Morning Musings become Friday Feelings this week, where they likely remain for the rest of the season. What’s on my mind today?

What I liked: Audi Crooks, Olivia Miles, conference games
What I’m not sure about: Michigan, Tennessee/Florida
What I didn’t like: Notre Dame

Year of the upset

After South Carolina’s game was over, around 4:30 or 5:00, I noted with disappointment that the day had been chalk up to that point. Wow, did that change. By the end of the day, three top-ten teams had lost, two of them to unranked teams, and another ranked squad lost to one of the worst power conference teams in the country.

No. 6 Michigan lost 64-52 at Washington and no. 7 Maryland lost 73-70 at Illinois. No. 5 LSU lost at home to no. 11 Kentucky 80-78. None of those three were necessarily bad losses, but they were certainly unexpected. 

NEW! Message board for South Carolina Women’s Basketball! 🏀

No. 18 Notre Dame unequivocally had a bad loss, falling 95-90 at Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets entered the game ranked 112th in the NET, and their only wins were against Quad 4 opponents.

A fifth ranked team, no. 20 Nebraska lost at no. 14 Iowa. That doesn’t qualify as an upset, but it’s another top 25 team going down.

Conference Play, YAY!

Earlier this week, Dawn Staley talked about how excited Raven Johnson was to start SEC play. Raven’s not the only one.

All of the upsets mentioned above were conference games. Conference play is so much more difficult for power conference teams because you are not only seeing a step up in competition, but there are no more secrets. 

The other team knows who you are, what you want to do, and what your weaknesses are. All those mistakes you were able to gloss over in the first half of the season? Now the other team is going right at them.

Especially in the SEC, even the bad teams are pretty good, too. I mentioned this on Thursday when Alabama made a run against South Carolina. South Carolina was playing some great defense, but Alabama (who is definitely not a bad team), was hitting better shots. It’s fun for the fans.

We haven’t even gotten students back on campus yet in most places. Soon road games will get even more difficult. 

🏀 GamecocksW newsletter: WBB coverage delivered straight to your inbox!

SEC Uncertainty 

There was only one real upset in the SEC on Thursday, but there were another handful of games that challenged conventional wisdom. 

Tennessee trailed Florida, a team with two Quad 4 losses, late in the third quarter before pulling away in the fourth. The Lady Vols continue to look a lot more like a bubble team than a preseason top ten team.

No. 15 Ole Miss dominated the third quarter, but was otherwise played to a draw by Georgia. Does that mean Georgia is better than we thought? Or does it mean Ole Miss is worse than we thought? Or was it just a hard-fought conference game?

Arkansas and Missouri, the two lowest-ranked SEC teams in the NET, stayed within 20 points of no. 2 Texas and no. 12 Vanderbilt, respectively. Those weren’t upsets, but they show how tough SEC games are.

I’ve saved the biggest game for last. No. 11 Kentucky beat no. 5 LSU 80-78 on Tonie Morgan’s three-pointer with 0.5 seconds left. Going into Thursday’s games, conventional wisdom was that the SEC had a top four (South Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, and LSU), a significant gap, then a next four (Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, and Tennessee), another gap, etc.

Kentucky not only destroyed that theory, but LSU is already in desperation mode in the conference race. It’s too soon to know if Kentucky’s win means the Wildcats should rise into the top group or the Tigers should drop into the second group.

What we do know is that LSU is already a game behind South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas, who it plays twice. The last time a team won the SEC with two or more conference losses was 2017, when South Carolina went 14-2.

Being on the verge of being knocked out of contention after one game is the “SEC Grind” in all its glory.

NEW! Message board for South Carolina Women’s Basketball!