South Carolina women’s basketball: Five Things to Watch – Sweet 16 vs Oklahoma

South Carolina and Oklahoma face off in Sacramento with a trip to the Elite Eight on the line. Here’s what to watch for.

1. Availability

No changes are expected for either team. Oklahoma expects to have all players available.

South Carolina is without Chloe Kitts, who is out for the season with a torn ACL, and Adhel Tac, who is out indefinitely with a foot injury. 

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2. Shoot!

South Carolina had one of its worst games of the season on both ends of the court. Offensively, South Carolina shot 37%, its second-worst shooting game of the season. If South Carolina had made just a couple of buckets more, it would have been a win.

Joyce Edwards, Ta’Niya Latson, and Madina Okot, normally the Gamecocks’ three most efficient scoring threats, struggled the most.

Edwards had just 12 points on 3-12 shooting, Latson had just six points on 1-10 shooting, and Okot had six points on 3-9 shooting. 

Latson said South Carolina didn’t begin the game with the proper focus, mentally or physically, and that led to poor shooting.

“They played with a lot of physicality, and I feel like we weren’t necessarily mentally prepared for that, and that also played a part in the way we shot the ball,” Latson said. “We’re looking forward to tomorrow and playing better and attacking them with just as much. We can’t be the first one that gets hit. We’ve got to hit first.”

It also didn’t help that Tessa Johnson got into early foul trouble. Johnson scored eight points in the first three minutes, but she also picked up two fouls and had to sit. Without her spacing the floor, South Carolina struggled to get into a rhythm. And when Johnson returned, she had cooled off, and only scored 11 points the rest of the game.

3. Defense!

On the other end, the Gamecocks gave up a season-high 94 points (albeit in overtime), and allowed season-highs in rebounds, assists, and field goals made and attempted. The Sooners shot 48%, the second-highest shooting percentage the Gamecocks allowed this season.

Oklahoma makes a lot of teams struggle on defense. The Sooners are fourth in the nation in scoring at 86.5 points, which is also a program record. Few teams can find the balance that the Sooners have, where they can play fast and shoot quickly but also work the ball into the paint with dominant post-ups from Raegan Beers.

“I think the biggest challenge is that they’re very fast. Obviously, they are one of the higher-paced offenses in the nation. But they have a very big dominant post player with shooters around her,” Edwards said. “I feel like that’s the most challenge because you can help, but if you help too much, you’re going to get a three knocked down your face. There’s a balance to the situation, and you have to stop it. You have to stop both the 3-point line and (Beers) on the inside, plus their pace, and their rebounding, also.”

In the first game, South Carolina frequently failed to quickly get matched up on defense. Players jogged back and settled inside the three-point line. But Oklahoma raced to the arc and fired threes while South Carolina was still back-pedaling. South Carolina has to pick up players further out this time.

“Sometimes there’s the misconception that a center like Raegan Beers can’t play at that pace, and I don’t agree with that. It makes you be assertive and it makes you position. It makes you be in alignment with one another more than you think. It’s not just roll it out and somebody go make a play. You have to be on the same page at all times,” Oklahoma coach Jennie Baranczyk said. “But I think that’s part of who we are. The reason that I do that is I want five people on the floor as scorers at all times, at all times. I want everybody to rebound. I want everybody to defend. I want everybody to handle. I want everybody to shoot. When you are like that and you build your chemistry, it’s really challenging to guard, but more so than that, it’s really fun to play.”

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4. Battle of the bigs

Beers and Okot are the two best post players in the SEC, but Beers dominated Okot in the first game. Beers finished with 18 points and 14 rebounds. She shot 8-9 from the floor and scored the game-tying putback that sent the game to overtime.

Okot had just six points on 3-9 shooting, plus four rebounds. She had three turnovers and three fouls in just 17 minutes. It was the low-point in a stretch of subpar performances that led to Okot being taken out of the starting lineup for three games to try to regroup.

That move worked, and Okot has been outstanding in February and March. She had nine straight double-doubles at the end of the season, and poured in 15 points and 15 rebounds against Southern Cal in the second round. 

Beers excels at drawing fouls, but she also has a tendency to commit fouls. The best defense on her might be a big offensive game from Okot. Beers doesn’t like to defend on the perimeter either, and South Carolina has had success with longer players Alicia Tournebize (nine points and three rebounds in January) and Maryam Dauda (2025 SEC tournament semifinals) giving Beers a different look.

5. Scouting the Sooners

Beers is Oklahoma’s best player, but hardly the only star. Payton Verhulst had 19 points in the first game and averages 12.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 3.1 assists. Forward Sahara Williams had 10 rebounds in January, and averages 12.5 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 3.8 assists as the complement to Beers. Freshman Aaliyah Chavez averages 18.3 points, 4.2 assists, and 3.9 rebounds, and scored 15 of her 26 points in overtime in Oklahoma’s win in January.

“She’s not a one-hit wonder,” Baranczyk said. “She just gets better and better and better. And she’s learning more and more and more. Some freshmen have great games and then they don’t, and then they do and then they don’t. She hasn’t really been like that for us. She’s just been really, really steady.”

Another freshman, Brooklyn Stewart, averages 6.8 points and 4.4 rebounds off the bench and plays well enough to keep Beers fresh. But overall, Oklahoma gets most of its production from the starting five.

The Sooners’ biggest weakness is that they have a tendency to forget about Beers. That happened in the first half against South Carolina the last time, and Baranczyk took Chavez out of the game and reminded her to get the ball inside. Chavez heeded the instructions and helped the Sooners erase a seven-point halftime deficit.

The Ws

Who: #1 South Carolina (33-3, 15-1 SEC) vs #4 Oklahoma (26-7, 11-5 SEC)
When: 5:00 ET, Saturday, March 28
Where: Golden 1 Center, Sacramento, CA
Watch: ESPN
Sendoff: 12:10 (PT), Sheraton Grand, 1230 J St., Sacramento, CA