After one quarter, it looked like it would be a hard-fought SEC Tournament final between No. 1-seed South Carolina and No. 2-seed Texas.
But then, South Carolina went South Carolina, with the Gamecocks going on one of their signature game-breaking runs. The score was 12-10 in South Carolina’s favor at the end of the first. With just under four minutes left in the second period, it was 27-10, with the Gamecocks having held the Longhorns scoreless for almost seven minutes.
From there, it was all South Carolina, with the Gamecocks cruising to the program’s third-straight and ninth-overall SEC Tournament title, downing Texas 64-45. South Carolina is still the SEC standard.
Why the Gamecocks were so great
South Carolina succeeded in again causing trouble for Madison Booker, throwing multiple defenders at the SEC Player of the Year and holding her to only six first-half shots; she made just one for two points across the game’s first 20 minutes. No other player stepped up as a source of offense for the Longhorns, who also coughed up 11 turnovers through the first two quarters. They also didn’t earn a single free throw. The 16 first-half points for the Horns was, unsurprisingly, a season low.
The Gamecocks buzzed around the stuck-in-the-mud Longhorns, with the bench…
