Women's March Madness 2024: Time for South Carolina to worry? - ESPN

ALBANY, N.Y. — Just 2 minutes, 30 seconds into the third quarter of Friday's Sweet 16 game, South Carolina looked like it was embarking on another women's NCAA tournament runaway. The Gamecocks had built a 22-point lead on an Indiana team that seemed to be barely hanging on.

But the Hoosiers had plenty left. They rallied and ended up giving South Carolina a scare similar to what Tennessee did to the Gamecocks in the SEC tournament semifinals when the Lady Vols erased a 23-point deficit.

Indiana outscored South Carolina by 13 points in the second half and got the deficit down to two with 1:08 to play. Raven Johnson made a 3-pointer and a free throw in the final minute that was just enough for the Gamecocks to win 79-75, remain undefeated and move to the Elite Eight for the fourth consecutive year.

But did the disappearance of another big lead leave more questions than answers for the Gamecocks?

Andrea Adelson, Charlie Creme and Michael Voepel examine what the future might now hold for South Carolina, the No. 1 overall seed.

Adelson: In her postgame comments, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley mentioned that she still has a relatively young team that makes unwise decisions at times. And some of those decisions helped Indiana get back into the game. Staley said players started taking ill-advised shots. Instead of continuing to feed the ball inside to Kamilla Cardoso, who could then kick out to set up a much better shot, players were launching long-range jumpers that kept missing. «When we build a lead, they think any shot is a good shot,» Staley said. «We took some bad shots that led to easy buckets for them.»

Creme: The biggest thing is that this South Carolina team doesn't have the same closing skills as most of Staley's