Southeastern Conference counterparts South Carolina and Texas meet for the fourth time this season, this time in Friday’s first semifinal matchup of the Final Four in Tampa.
Emerging as top seeds from the Birmingham Regions 2 and 3, South Carolina (34-3) and Texas (35-3) last met on March 9 in the SEC tournament final. The reigning national champion Gamecocks avenged a 66-62 road loss on Feb. 9 with their 64-45 win in the league championship that gave them a 2-1 edge in the season series.
South Carolina’s SEC title victory was part of an 11-game winning streak the Gamecocks carry into Tampa after making it through a hard-fought regional. They faced halftime deficits in the second Round and Sweet 16 vs. Indiana and Maryland, and trailed in the fourth quarter of last Sunday’s 54-50 Elite Eight win over Duke.
“At this point (in the season) it’s not going to look pretty,” said South Carolina coach Dawn Staley. “It’s not going to look as smoothly as us coaches and players envision or how you practice, but you certainly have to get down and play the kind of game that’s presented in front of you, and we’ll do that.”
The Gamecocks are in their fifth consecutive Final Four, seeking a third national championship in the last four seasons. They are trying to become the first repeat national champions since UConn finished a stretch of three straight titles from 2014-2016.
Senior Sania Feagin, a member of the 2022 and 2024 South Carolina title teams, scored 12 points in the regional final vs. Duke.
“Her growth, her maturation process has just been on an upward trajectory. I’ve always said she was the most talented big,” Staley said. “To see her just out there performing like a senior, that’s what you want.”
Feagin and Chloe Kitts, who scored 14 points in the Elite Eight, combined for 26 points and 15 rebounds in the SEC championship game. They are again focal points against a Texas team that leveraged its interior size to shut down TCU center Sedona Prince in the Longhorns’ 58-47 Elite Eight win.
Taylor Jones blocked four shots, and the Texas defense held TCU to just 12-of-45 shooting from the floor for the game.
“Defense wins games,” said Madison Booker, who joins Jones at forward in the Texas frontcourt. Booker is the Longhorns leading scorer at 16.1 points per game, but was held to 4-of-13 shooting for the 10 points in the last meeting with South Carolina.
“We played really well at our place (and) we had a bad quarter in the SEC tournament,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said of his team’s previous matchups with the Gamecocks. “They came out and put it on us the first half at their place. So we have tons of experiences to draw from and learn from, but, again, we’ve gotta learn and we’ve gotta be different.”
Although Texas last reached the Final Four in 2003, this is not new territory for Schaefer. He led Mississippi State to the national championship game in 2017, where his Bulldogs lost to Staley’s first title-winning team at South Carolina.
–Field Level Media
