South Carolina women's basketball: Post-exam break Monday Morning Musings

In this week’s Monday Morning Musings, we talk about scouting, conference play, and fundamentals.

It’s been two weeks since my last edition, so let’s get caught up.

What I didn’t like: Injuries, Free throws, The ACC
What I’m not sure of: The Big Ten
What I liked: Top ten rivalry games, Still Audi Crooks, (Double) Overtime thrillers

I know you

In this transfer portal/NIL era of college basketball, almost every team has significant turnover each offseason. As a result, nobody (coaches or media) really knows much about teams. 

But now we are over a month into the season and most teams have played 10-12 games. That means coaches have plenty of game film to study and find the weaknesses in opponents. 

I think we saw that with two games this weekend. UConn routed no. 16 Southern Cal 79-51 at the Galen Center, and no. 15 Kentucky struggled to put away Belmont in a 77-69 team. 

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Southern Cal, which was once ranked no. 8 and Kentucky, which cruised through the first month of its schedule, aren’t regressing, but both saw major offseason turnover and nobody knew exactly what to expect from them going into the season. For lack of a better expression, they had the element of surprise for the first few weeks. 

Now that it is gone, opponents are better at attacking weaknesses.

Conference play beckons

The Big Ten and ACC have already eased into conference play and the Big 12 starts next weekend. 

For most teams, that means the schedule is about to get tougher, and some teams that took advantage of easy schedules are going to get exposed. But it also means there are few, if any, more chances to prove themselves out of conference. 

That won’t be a problem in the SEC, Big Ten, or Big 12, where there are multiple ranked teams (especially in the first two conferences). But it’s a problem in the ACC where not only are Quad 1 opportunities going to be hard to find, but there are several Quad 4 teams dragging down the strength of schedule.

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Fundamentals

Last Sunday, Minnesota led by five with 19 seconds left in overtime and by nine with 44 seconds left in the second overtime. Maryland still won thanks to Minnesota’s inability to make simple passes.

This Sunday, Sunday, North Carolina had a chance to seal its first ranked win of the season against Louisville, leading 66-65 with less than a second left. But failed inbounds (after a timeout) and missed free throws allowed Louisville to win 76-66 in overtime. Louisville also appeared to throw the game away on a bad pass, but North Carolina couldn’t capitalize.

For that matter, South Carolina almost gave away the game against Louisville because it had trouble inbounding the ball.

It’s amazing how an entire 40-minute (or 50-minute) game can come down to executing a few seconds of basic fundamentals, things these players could normally do in their sleep.

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