Despite the 25-point loss that the South Carolina women's basketball team suffered against UConn Thursday night, the amount of respect that is shared between the teams was shown during their fourth consecutive matchup. They both recognize the caliber of talent each team plays with and knew this game would once again be a battle.
This respect also leads to both opponents seeing some takeaways as they being to round out their regular seasons. Head coach Dawn Staley believes that her team will be able to overcome this devastating loss.
“It’s been a long time since I've seen UConn shoot 28 percent in the third quarter, 38 percent in the fourth quarter, 40 percent for the game, they don't do that a whole lot," Staley said. “So we got to hang our heads on something in this kind of defeat.”
This defeat could give South Carolina the push that they need to improve on and strengthen their young team.
“I thought that our defense in the second and fourth quarters gave them some pause and it gave us the opportunity to score a little bit and not rely so much on our half-court offense,” Staley added.
Despite the challenge of staying strong with an inexperienced team, freshman Bianca Jackson was able to reach a career-high of 20 points. Staley said she has been trying to jump start Jackson since the start of the season, and with her performance tonight, it is only going to help them in the long run.
Senior A’ja Wilson hung her head in disappointment of her performance against the Huskies, but Staley disagreed.
"I thought A’ja shouldered all the pressure and that’s hard," Staley said. "Of course we lean on her a lot, but she doesn’t feel it. I thought she felt it tonight, she felt that she had to have a tremendous performance tonight for us to win and she did, but she didn’t have to do it in every play that she was involved in. But we have to give her a little bit of help.”
UConn clearly had the advantage coming into this game being the No. 1 team in the country, but head coach Geno Auriemma said he knew that his team was not going to able to take everything away from South Carolina.
The fight to beat the Huskies will still continue for the Gamecocks at least for the next two years. However, because of the relationship that both Staley and Auriemma share, and the level of competitiveness these teams play at, they want this series to continue in the future.
“From what I gathered, there is interest on both sides to keep going,” Auriemma said.
But for now, South Carolina finds some comfort in these takeaways as they have an off day before prepping for the No. 2 Mississippi State Bulldogs on Monday.