South Carolina women's basketball entered Sunday chasing history, hoping to become the second program to ever win four consecutive SEC championships.
In a rematch from last season's title game, Texas had little difficulty in dominating the Gamecocks from start to finish. The win is the first for Longhorn head coach Vic Schaefer over Gamecock head coach Dawn Staley in the postseason, as he was previously 0-8 against Staley.
You could not have scripted a worse start to the game for South Carolina, which nearly immediately found itself down 14-0 in the first quarter. In six possessions, the Gamecocks had gotten off just one shot and had turned the ball over five times. The Longhorns made their first seven attempts from the field.
"It was bad," sophomore forward Joyce Edwards said. "It was bad on all the starters. We're supposed to set the tone out there, and we definitely didn't do that."
South Carolina was down 27-12 after the first quarter. Texas' full-court pressure helped hold the Gamecocks to 30.8% (4-13) from the field.
Sophomore guard Maddy McDaniel shined, despite the team's slow start, checking in and getting on the board almost immediately with a layup. She also knocked down a 3-pointer, as did freshman guard Agot Makeer when she entered the game.
The two young guards had three of the team's four makes in the first quarter and 8 of the the Gamecocks' 12 points.
South Carolina hung around in the second quarter, having outscored Texas 10-6 halfway through the period. After not seeing the floor in the semifinal game against LSU, freshman forward Alicia Tournebize got on the board early off a feed from senior guard Ta'Niya Latson.
The team was still outscored 18-16 by the end of the quarter. Both teams shot 50% in the quarter, and Texas knocked down two triples.
Edwards led the team with 6 points in the second, adding three rebounds and two assists by halftime. Makeer added another score as well, bringing both her and McDaniel's point totals to 5 each. Of the Gamecocks' 28 points in the first half, 18 had been scored by freshmen or sophomores. The youthful core combined for six rebounds and four assists as well.
In the third quarter, South Carolina (66.7%) managed to more than double Texas' (31.3%) shooting percentage in the quarter, but only shaved 4 points off the Longhorns' lead. Tournebize was the only Gamecock with multiple made field goals in the period, grabbing a team-high three rebounds as well.
The game was kept out of reach for South Carolina throughout the fourth quarter, as Texas shot 64.3% (9-14) in the game's final period. Edwards had 5 points, but no other Gamecock had more than 3.
Edwards and McDaniel were the only two players on the team to finish in double-figure scoring. The Gamecocks' young bench flashed potential all game, despite the team's overall poor performance. McDaniel finished the game with 10 points, tying her career-high and hitting the mark for the third time since Feb. 5.
"It definitely gives us the confidence, the experience, to go out there next game and just play way better," McDaniel said. "Just give the team whatever they need."
Makeer scored points in all four quarters, finishing with 9. Tournebize led the team with seven rebounds, a career-high.
"When you're on the bench, I feel like you see it from a different perspective," Makeer said. "Coming in, I knew the adjustments that had to be made, what I had to do."
Senior guard Raven Johnson is the only senior to have spent every year of her career with the program. This is the first season she has played in which South Carolina has not won the SEC Championship.
"(It's) a lot of people's first time being here and being in this moment, experiencing this," Johnson said. "Last time I checked, when we lost (the SEC Championship), we won a national championship."
South Carolina lost to Kentucky in the 2022 SEC Championship game before going on to defeat UConn in the national championship game later that season. Then-future Gamecock star center Kamilla Cardoso came off the bench in that game.
"We need them," Johnson said of the bench. "I think they know that. Our bench production, we need everybody on this team ... It's getting deeper. It's going to get nothing but tougher."
The Gamecocks now shift attention to the NCAA Tournament. The team's first-round game will take place on either March 20 or 21, and the team will need a better performance than Sunday's product to win a national championship.
"We just learn from it," Edwards said. "This is just a learning experience, learning opportunity. We don't want to feel like this again. We know we don't want to feel like this again."