Freshman Tessa Johnson had an up-and-down season for the South Carolina Gamecocks. There were games during the season in which she only played a handful of minutes, or was held scoreless altogether. In the first game of the NCAA Tournament, she went 0-for-7 from the field. Heading into the national championship game, she averaged six points in 17 minutes for a loaded South Carolina roster, good for 9th most on the team.
But when the lights were the brightest—with a record-breaking 18.7 million people watching—Johnson was a superstar. In the national championship game against Iowa, she exploded for a team-high 19 points on 7-for-11 shooting. Her pair of third quarter 3-pointers helped South Carolina pull away for good, and defeat an Iowa team that had already knocked off LSU and UConn.
In turn, she became the first freshman to lead her team in scoring in the national championship game since Breanna Stewart did it for UConn in 2013. In turn, she and the Gamecocks became national champions.
Tessa Johnson cooking!!
— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 7, 2024
After the game, Johnson said:
I wanted to win. Our team, we want to win. My teammates are just encouraging, always having my back, telling me, “Play how you play.” So I just did that. I don’t feel…
