'Heartbroken' S.C. hopes loss fuels next title run

TAMPA, Fla. -- Raven Johnson checked out of the national title game with four minutes left to play and South Carolina down 32 points to UConn, the Gamecocks' hopes to repeat as champions vanished.

She sat on the bench, put her head in her hands and cried. Bree Hall put an arm around her and told her to keep her head up. They had so much to be proud of despite the result, an 82-59 loss on Sunday.

Hall approached the end to her South Carolina career pragmatically. Though she hated to lose, she felt grateful for making four Final Four appearances and winning two titles. Johnson, though, put a towel over her face. She could not help but blame herself as the final seconds ticked off the clock.

"I was hurt, I was heartbroken, I was embarrassed," Johnson said in a somber postgame locker room. "I felt like my soul got snatched. I hate losing. That's the big thing. I wanted to win so bad today and I feel like I fell short. I'm going to beat up on myself about this game because a loss just doesn't sit right with me."

A few minutes before Johnson walked into the locker room, senior Sania Feagin stood at her locker and could not stop the flow of tears as she tried to answer a question about how much her time at South Carolina meant to her. Across the way, MiLaysia Fulwiley cried, too.

"They played harder than us," Fulwiley said. "They played like they wanted to win the national championship. I think we didn't. They had more grit than us. They got loose balls; they ran their stuff. They didn't back down from us. We came out on the same level, but we didn't keep it up."

Indeed, South Carolina matched UConn bucket for bucket for nearly the entire first quarter. But things started to slip away in the second quarter, when the Huskies upped their physicality and intensity and took away South Carolina's interior game -- an area where the Gamecocks had thrived all season. UConn outscored South Carolina 36-26 in the paint.

According to ESPN Research, that is South Carolina's second-worst paint points differential in a game this season (minus-14 in loss at Texas on Feb. 9). South Carolina entered Sunday averaging 42.0 paint points per game this season, the most in Division I.

"They filled the paint up," said Chloe Kitts, who finished with nine points on 3-of-11 shooting. "We were trying to go up. We missed some. Lots of contact down there. They got us flustered on offense. We couldn't finish. We just didn't get the ball in the basket at the end of the day."

It was not only the fact that South Carolina shot 34% for the game. The defense it had relied on to make it to the national championship game faltered as well, giving up easy baskets on backdoor cuts as the Huskies shot 48% from the field. The Gamecocks also got outrebounded by seven on the defensive end.

"Their coach definitely took advantage of the matchups they had," Fulwiley said. "It was easy scores for them, and they kept doing what was working for them. They have a very good coach. It was smart for him to keep running the same things working on us. We've just got to get better on the defensive end. Most of the points they scored were unacceptable."

Added Te-Hina Paopao: "We had frustration throughout the game. We couldn't get stops, we couldn't battle, we couldn't fight. We had to be more physical, and we ended up not being the defensive team that we know how to be."

Reality started to set in during the third quarter that this simply was not going to go South Carolina's way.

"They were hitting everything," Johnson said. "They're a phenomenal team. They play well together. They were just an oiled machine."

"We tried," Hall said. "We really did try. We just got beat, and it's just the honest truth."

Coach Dawn Staley said, "We lost to a very, very good basketball team. They beat our ass, but they didn't make us like it. There's a difference."

Staley was asked what she wants her young players to take away from the experience of getting blown out in the national title game.

"I hope they're crying," Staley said. "I hope they're boohooing because from crying they have emotion about losing, makes you work hard in the offseason. Makes you look at it and really analyze what the separation is from their program and our program and how we close the gap with that."

South Carolina will lose Feagin, Paopao and Hall next season. Johnson said she has decided whether to come back for another year or enter the WNBA draft and will make an announcement "soon."

Asked whether the loss Sunday had affected her decision, she said, "It made me think a little bit because I would love to end on a good note."

Fulwiley was also asked what she and her returning teammates would have to focus on to avoid a similar result next season, and gave a somewhat cryptic answer.

"Just getting better, just trying to understand a lot of things and just trying to think things through and see what's best for me," Fulwiley said.

Freshman Joyce Edwards, who led the team in scoring this season, returns along with Kitts and Tessa Johnson, in addition to incoming freshman Agot Makeer (the No. 4 recruit in the class of 2025) and the return of Ashlyn Watkins off a season-ending knee injury.

Those who have helped make South Carolina an annual Final Four team were steadfast in their belief in one thing, despite the loss.

"Like they say, minor setback for a major comeback. South Carolina will be back in the national championship game," Johnson said. "Hopefully, this adds fire to next year of trying to get back here."