What are the chances that the Southern University Women’s basketball team would meet Head Coach Dawn Staley, of the South Carolina University Gamecocks women’s basketball team, before their matchup Saturday afternoon? Well, it happened, and Coach Staley met the team at their hotel to give the Lady Jaguars gifts and welcome them to South Carolina. She gifted the Lady Jaguars her signature Louis Vuitton perfume Imagination, along with words of encouragement, before their Saturday afternoon matchup.
Coach Staley and her Gamecocks women’s basketball team took away any imagination the Southern University Lady Jaguars had, thinking they were going to beat them in this #1 vs #16 NCAA women’s matchup. The Lady Jaguars were held scoreless for over 5 minutes in the first quarter before they scored their first points of the game. Southern University had opportunities to score points in the paint, but fell short multiple times throughout this matchup. The Gamecocks’ suffocating defense, blitzing and trapping the Jaguar ball handlers, South Carolina’s front-court size proved to be too much for the Lady Jaguars. Shots that would normally fall for the Southern University team were falling. The Jaguars for the game shot 12 for 65, which is 18.5%. Coach Funchess team had a rough afternoon was unable to get the right combination of players on the court to have a better outing in this game.
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South Carolina scored 62 points in the paint, 20 fast break points, and 35 points off turnovers. Southern University turned the ball over 20 times in the game, 6 of those in the first quarter, which led to South Carolina scoring 8 easy points, and 4 of those points were fast break scores. The Gamecocks were leaking their players to catch outlet passes for easy scores throughout the game after wearing down the Lady Jaguars team. The Gamecocks had 5 players who scored in double digits. Joyce Edwards scored 27 points, Ta’Niya Latson scored 17 points, Agot Makeen scored 16 points, Madina Okot scored 15 points, and Tessa Johnson logged a double-double, scoring 15 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.
The Lady Jaguars were held to single-digit scoring in the 1st and 3rd quarters, adding up to a total of 8 points, which allowed the Gamecocks to secure this win and move on to the next round. Southern University gave a valiant effort in the game, but the Gamecocks proved to be too much. The Lady Jags had one player score in double digits: Jocelyn Tate, who scored 10 points and added 8 rebounds. That wasn’t enough to help the Lady Jags get back in this game, even with the help they got from their bench scoring 23 points.
The Southern University Lady Jaguars may have been eliminated from the dance by South Carolina 103-34, have a lot to build off for the future, winning the last three out of the last four Southwestern Athletic Conference Women’s Basketball Championships. They have won the first four games in back-to-back seasons, showing they can be a power if they add the right pieces to their program, allowing them to compete against bigger and stronger teams in the preseason and in the NCAA tournament.