In the days leading up to Friday’s first round NCAA tournament game, South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley preached the importance of not overlooking 16-seed Savannah State to her players. After all, one loss at this point in the year ends your season and the visiting Tigers had won 11 straight games.
It took over a half of play, but Staley’s message was eventually received and South Carolina pulled away from Savannah State, winning 81-48 against the heavy underdogs.
“We got off to somewhat of a rocky start from a defensive standpoint,” Staley said. “I thought we fouled a little bit too much in the first half. In the second half, I thought we made some defensive adjustments to slow them down.”
South Carolina is hoping that the victory is the first of several in-a-row as the Gamecocks attempt to fulfill their goal of bringing home a national championship. Next on tap for South Carolina is a second round matchup on Sunday against the winner of Friday’s game between eight-seed Syracuse and nine-seed Nebraska.
Despite shooting 72 percent in the first half, South Carolina led by only 13 points come halftime due to Savannah State’s ability to get to foul line, while slowing the game down on offense.
“We weren’t executing,” South Carolina senior forward Aleighsa Welch said. “It was just a really slow start. It took us a really long time to get out of it.”
Clearly, the Gamecocks were going up against a different Savannah State team from the one that lost to South Carolina by 62 points in December.
The Tigers cut the deficit down to 10 points a few minutes into the second half and the Gamecocks struggled to go on one of its trademarked runs that have doomed several opponents in the past. Until junior guard Khadijah Sessions had her say, that is.
Sessions made back-to-back transition layups off of turnovers by Savannah State that put South Carolina ahead by 15 and the Gamecocks wouldn’t look back.
“We needed something to get the game moving a little bit faster, open up the game and I just knew it had to come from making defensive stops,” Sessions said.
That sequence of play by Sessions injected some life into a South Carolina team that looked a bit lethargic at times. The Gamecocks became livelier as the game progressed, outscoring Savannah State 38-18 in the second half and South Carolina turned what was a 10-point game into a 21-point game in less than five minutes.
Savannah State head coach Cedric Baker said his team began to stray away from its first half game plan of using most of the shot clock and opted for quicker looks, which in turn led to easier opportunities for South Carolina.
Savannah State shot just 28 percent in the second half and as the Tigers cooled off, the Gamecocks were just starting to heat up on offense.
Going into the game, Staley knew her team had a clear advantage in size and strength in the paint. South Carolina used that to its advantage, and the Gamecock post players gave Savannah State fits.
South Carolina’s five-player frontcourt rotation of senior center Welch, senior center Elem Ibiam, sophomore center Alaina Coates, freshman center Jatarie White and freshman A’ja Wilson combined to shoot 91.3 percent from the field. As a team, South Carolina scored 56 points in the paint.
Wilson played a key role in South Carolina’s second half run, scoring 13 of her team-high 15 points after halftime. Meanwhile, Welch and Coates both shot 100 percent from the field.
“They’re probably the most fundamentally sound post players we’ve seen all year,” Baker said.
According to Welch, getting easy buckets near the basket was the goal from the get-go and she was happy with the way she and her teammates were able to do just that.
“We knew we had the height advantage, so when we did get the ball inside, it was just being able to convert it, especially the times we got one-on-one action,” Welch said.
While South Carolina’s start to the game wasn’t exactly ideal for the Gamecocks, Staley claimed that she wasn’t too worried about it and was impressed with the way her team played down the stretch.
Moving forward, South Carolina will regroup on Saturday before facing Syracuse or Nebraska on Sunday with a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line.