Gamecocks Vanquish Volunteers, Win SEC Tournament Title

South Carolina's Women's Basketball team leaves Greenville with their 37th straight win and an SEC Tournament Title in hand.

Coming into championship Sunday, the Gamecocks were looking to secure their seventh conference tournament title, and had to knock off the conference's leader in tournament titles in the Tennessee Lady Volunteers in order to do so. Through their size advantage in the front court, along with their overbearing team defense, the Gamecocks would pull away as the game progressed and defeated the Volunteers by a score of 74-58.

At the start of the game, both the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Tennessee Volunteers shot the ball well from the floor. For the Gamecocks, the beginning of the contest was used to establish a foothold in the paint area with the defending national player of the year in Aliyah Boston, who scored on each of her first five shots and was surprisingly being left in a plethora of one-on-one situations by Tennessee's defense.

The Volunteers, however, would respond shot for shot in the first ten minutes of the game, with stars Jordon Horston and Rickea Jackson scoring 13 points combined, albeit having to earn the majority of their points due to the Gamecocks' tenacious defense. South Carolina's persistence on the defensive end would eventually pay dividends in the second quarter, as Zia Cooke and Laeticia Amihere both play great man-to-man defense, forcing multiple turnovers and leading the charge behind a 12-0 run in the first five minutes of the second quarter.

The Gamecocks heightened defensive performance in the second quarter would continue in the third quarter, as after two Jackson buckets in the first 63 seconds of the period, South Carolina would begin to pack the paint and force more tough shots away from the rim, which the Volunteers were unable to convert on. This eventually lead to a few turnovers being forced by the Gamecocks, which they would turn into five points at the end of the period.

In the fourth quarter, Kamilla Cardoso began to make her impact on the game, racking up offensive rebounds and making life difficult on Tennessee's front court with her height advantage on the low block. From this point onward, the Volunteers were essentially unable to hold off the Gamecocks onslaught, and at the final buzzer, South Carolina officially won their seventh SEC Tournament title in program history. Likely the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament, the Gamecocks will now wait to see who their opponents will be in their regional, which will be announced on selection Sunday this coming weekend.

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