Full assessment:
No South Carolina fan has been fully confident in the guards this season and tonight it showed. Both are talented but struggle with shot selection and turnovers. Gamecocks need more consistency and less damage from those two to be elite at season’s end. That said, both were a few degrees worse tonight than they typically are.
Boston was good but has issues finishing that I just cannot explain for a player of her caliber. Her rebounding is absolutely ridiculous and she cooly matched her season average in blocks tonight. She was good—not great—and that’s more than you can say for the others.
Saxton is so much better than she is recognized for. This game has a different outcome if she gets 6-7 shots instead of 3.
Bueckers was unbelievable (as an opposing fan, I hate her! lol). I’m not going to say a whole lot else because there really isn’t much you can say. She’s a professional. This isn’t news. If she isn’t a first-team AA, so help me god.
The rest of UConn’s non-freshman roster was dreadful which is part of what makes the loss tough to swallow. I do think both ONO and Williams appear to have regressed this year (they’re lower-usage, so it could just be optics, but Williams in particular seemed much better as a freshman than she does now).
I think South Carolina has more persistent deficiencies in its play (turnovers an issue, shot selection an issue, perimeter shooting as well), but as we saw, this team can hang and is very much in the national title conversation. But I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge UConn as the rightful favorite at this point.