It would be difficult for two teams to know each other quite as well as South Carolina and Texas do at this point.
Three games in one season is one thing. The Gamecocks and Longhorns are getting ready for Round 4.
“It’s our fourth time playing them but it’s their fourth time playing us,” Texas guard Shay Holle said Thursday in Tampa, Fla., one day before the SEC rivals collide in the Final Four. “It goes the both ways in the sense obviously on both sides it’s going to be a well-scouted game; we’ll know play calls, all that stuff.
“It’s really how you execute it. You can put in different things. I’m sure they’re doing it as well. As (teammate Rori Harmon) said, at the end of the day, talent meets talent.”
In Texas’ first season in the conference, the teams split a pair of regular-season meetings — a 67-50 South Carolina win in Columbia and a 66-62 Texas victory in Austin. They advanced to the SEC championship game, which South Carolina dominated 64-45.
“It’s one thing to talk it. It’s another thing to walk it,” said Texas coach Vic Schaefer, whose program seeks its second national title. “And they don’t like to be told they’ve been punked. They take great pride in not getting punked. When I tell them they’ve gotten punked, they do not like it. So they work hard. So you want them to enjoy it.”
South Carolina’s players also understood how razor-thin the margins would be when facing a foe as familiar as Texas.
“We know they’re going to come and bring whatever they have against us,” guard Raven Johnson said. “So I think we just need to listen to our coaches because they game plan and execute what they have for us.”
The Gamecocks are the more established program in this matchup, with seven appearances in the Final Four and three championships. But Dawn Staley’s group is in the rare position of wanting payback – South Carolina’s three losses this season have come to each of the other Final Four teams in Texas, UCLA and UConn.
“We just have to go out there and show that our best basketball has yet to come,” guard MiLaysia Fulwiley told ESPN. “So it motivates me because we owe them one.”
–Field Level Media
