Dawn Staley has South Carolina back in a familiar place — the Final Four — and she got there this time with an entirely new starting lineup.
Tessa Johnson scored 15 points and Kamilla Cardoso added 12 to help the undefeated Gamecocks to a 70-58 win over Oregon State on Sunday in the Albany 1 Regional Final of the NCAA women’s tournament.
“Proud because we beat the odds,” Staley said. “Odds said we shouldn’t make it back to the Final Four. Proud of our team for them believing in themselves. We created a certain level of chemistry and culture and they stuck with it.”
It’s the second consecutive year the Gamecocks have made it to the national semifinals undefeated. South Carolina hopes for a different conclusion this time. The Gamecocks lost to Caitlin Clark and Iowa in the Final Four last year.
“We’re different this year. I think we can do a lot of things. We can shoot from outside, drive,” Raven Johnson said. “We can play from the inside out. This team is just a young, feisty, fierce team that’s hungry. We’ve got a chip on our shoulder.”
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The Gamecocks, who have made the Final Four in four straight years, will play North Carolina State on Friday night in Cleveland. The Wolfpack beat Texas later Sunday in Portland, Ore.
“Each time we get an opportunity to cut down nets is kind of special,” Staley said.
Two more wins by South Carolina would make the Gamecocks the 10th school to finish a season undefeated and the first since UConn did it in 2016.
Tessa Johnson answered after a timeout with a three-point play, scoring on a drive to restore a seven-point cushion. The Beavers then went cold from the field, missing their final seven shots.
South Carolina couldn’t score either until Johnson made two free throws with 44.5 seconds left. The Gamecocks sealed the win from the free throw line.
“We got every shot we wanted down the stretch of this game and they didn’t fall,” Oregon State coach Scott Rueck said. “Give them credit for not giving us two. … In this game today we had to be near flawless and we weren’t quite flawless enough.”
Raegan Beers scored 16 points to lead the Beavers.
This was the second straight game in which South Carolina let a double-digit second-half lead slip away. Just like against Indiana in the regional semifinal, the young Gamecocks made the necessary plays down the stretch.
“Winning close games late in the tournament … it shows how good we are, how hungry we are,” said Cardoso, who was honoured as the region’s most outstanding player. “We stay hungry because we don’t want to lose. So, we’re just going to do whatever we need to do to win the games.”
Confetti showers 🎉<a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/MarchMadness?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#MarchMadness</a> x 🎥 ABC / <a href=”https://twitter.com/GamecockWBB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@GamecockWBB</a> <a href=”https://t.co/3Qq12hYHVp”>pic.twitter.com/3Qq12hYHVp</a>
—@MarchMadnessWBB
South Carolina led 43-41 before scoring 12 straight points in the third quarter. Raven Johnson, who hit the big three-pointer to beat Indiana in the Sweet 16, connected on a corner three to start the game-changing spurt. Tessa Johnson followed with five straight points, and Sania Feagin capped the burst with the four points that made it 55-41 with 1:36 left in the third quarter.
The Beavers were down 58-46 heading into the fourth. They scored 12 of the first 16 points of the period to close within 62-58 on Donovyn Hunter’s layup.
South Carolina and Oregon State had played twice before in the NCAA tournament and the Gamecocks won both, including in 2021. Oregon State advanced this far for the first time since 2018. The Beavers made their only trip to the Final Four in 2016.
South Carolina is two victories away from its third national championship.
Third-seeded NC State earned its first trip to the Final Four of the NCAA women’s tournament since 1998, beating top-seeded Texas 76-66 in a game played with three-point lines at different distances on opposite ends of the court.
Before the Portland 4 Region final, Texas coach Vic Schaefer and NC State’s Wes Moore conferred with officials about a visible difference between the three-point lines.
The NCAA acknowledged a discrepancy but said both coaches agreed to play on. Four previous games in Portland were played without anyone saying anything publicly about the issue. The court will be corrected before Monday’s Elite Eight game between USC and UConn, the NCAA said.