South Carolina will always be a 2nd half team under Staley and her staff, as well. One could either say this represents a staff that doesn't know how to prepare their teams for big opponents, or one could say it represents a great knowledge of how to prepare a team: you can look at game film of an opponent all week long and lose sleep doing it, but you never truly know how your team matches up and plays against that opponent until you tip the ball up and play. Dawn Staley has developed a reputation as a great mid-game "adjuster" of how her teams compete, and you can see the results in the stat sheets of games. The only times when her teams do NOT have substantial 2nd-half improvements, are games where they dominated their opponent so much, that reserves play the majority of the 4th periods, which often muddies up the waters.
UCLA came out with a strong effort - they shot 53% from the field compared to USC's 32%. But they only led by 3 pts at the end of the 1st Period. In the 2nd Period, the Gamecocks started to enforce their defensive will, holding UCLA to only 24% from the field. But the Gamecocks shot only 29% themselves: Boston was blanketed in dbl and triple teams playing on a gimpy ankle, and Cooke was struggling to hit her shots.
The Gamecock bench only scored 8 pts in the 1st half - both teams were tied in rebounds and pts off turnovers. UCLA had twice the fouls that USC had, but the Gamecocks only hit 2 of their 7 FT tries, which was terrible.
Then came the 2nd half: The Gamecocks shot 50% for the half, holding the Bruins to just 27% themselves. The Bruins kept fouling, but the Gamecocks shot 16-20 from the line in the 2nd half. Cardoso got into a rhythm scoring 14 of her 16 pts after halftime, and the Gamecock bench out-scored UCLA's bench 19-2 in the 2nd half. And the Gamecocks out-scored the Bruins overall 46-33, on a pace that would have been an easy 26-pt win over a top 15 ranked opponent had it been that way for the whole game.
And people want to talk about how the Gamecocks looked so "ugly", "boring", and didn't look like the top WCBB team? The same things they said about the Gamecocks last season, too. That's OK.
Takeaways from the game:
- PG Raven Johnson had perhaps her worse showing of the season thus far, with 2 turnovers in the 1st Qtr., but her tandem running mate Kierra Fletcher had her best yet with 12 pts on 5-10 shooting and 10 rebounds - 7 of which she got in the 1st half.
- Boston had her first game after tweaking her ankle against Hampton, and while at times she showed a slight limp or favoring of her foot, she was able to put up solid Boston numbers against a top 15 opponent with 18 pts on 5-7 shooting, 10 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 3 assists.
- Cardoso also had a strong game, scoring 16 pts on 8-11 shooting, with 9 rebounds and 5 blocks. 14 of her pts and 8 of her rebounds came after halftime. This coming off of her 11 pts on 3-5 shooting, 14 rebounds, 3 block effort in 16 minutes versus Hampton, when Boston went down with her injury.
Remember, Cardoso - along with Feagin - did not play against Cal Poly prior to these past 2 games. So in the last 2 games, she's shot a combined 11-16 from the field for 27 pts, 23 rebounds, and 8 blocks. Not too shabby a way to get out of a doghouse.
- Last season, the Gamecock bench averaged 21 ppg for Dawn Staley's national champion team. Through 7 games thus far they are averaging 41 ppg, or 49% of the total team offensive production. This will most likely change once the SEC schedule starts up, but that's a ton of experience and production for a team that returned 4 of its 5 starters - plus the NPOY - to get from its reserves. Dawn Staley always builds her teams for improvement as the season progresses, so to get this effort early in the season will pay huge dividends come postseason time.....
