Gamecocks Talk What Happened In Third Quarter Against NC State

Andrew Lyon | Apr 5, 2024

Apr 5, 2024; Cleveland, OH, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks center Kamilla Cardoso (10) and guard Te-Hina Paopao (0) celebrate off the bench in the Final Four versus NC State / Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

When the South Carolina Gamecocks and NC State Wolfpack went into the locker room halfway through their Final Four clash on Friday night, Dawn Staley's squad possessed just a one-point lead. While there wasn't necessarily a reason for alarm at that point in the game, it didn't feel as if Carolina had ever gotten full control of the matchup until the third quarter rolled around, which saw the Gamecocks outscore the Wolfpack 29-6, suddenly putting the game to bed.

When an instance like this occurs, one would imagine that the head coach came bursting through doors yelling with fire and brimstone in their eyes, injecting a new life into her team. That's not exactly what happened, according to what Dawn said in her post-game presser.

"I mean, it [was] more just simplifying," she stated. I mean, what we were doing, we were victims of what we worked on, especially ball screen action. We knew that they were gonna go under, so we worked a little bit on re-screening, and once they started icing us, we just kept trying to do the same things and basically stop dribbling [in place]. More passing, more ball movement, and once we started having that -- I mean, it wasn't magic, it was just simple basketball, and then we just started getting stops, and we got easy buckets, and then we executed in the half-court to build ourselves a pretty good lead."

The players, like their coach, didn't feel that there was much they had to change. In essence, the message was to continue to bring the championship-level intensity that they had shown in the first half.

"I feel like we wanted it," Ashlyn Watkins said. "When we had our locker room talk, we wanted it. I could tell by the [facial expressions]; I could tell by our voices. We wanted it more."

The 29 points in a quarter are the most that South Carolina has scored in that regard in the entire NCAA Tournament.

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