SEC Tournament: Three takeaways from Lady Vols’ loss to South Carolina

There was no way the South Carolina Gamecocks would let the Tennessee Lady Vols beat them again. After losing to UT at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tenn. during the regular season, USC dominated 67-52 in the SEC Tournament semifinals.

Dawn Staley’s team, which is also trying to make up for losing the SEC regular season championship last week, trailed 11-10 early in the first. Then they closed the quarter on a 19-2 run and never trailed again. Fresh off a win over the Ole Miss Rebels’ Kellie Harper’s team had no answer for what was happening.

With the win, South Carolina improves to 21-4 and will face the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Tournament championship Sunday. Rocky Top falls to 16-7 and will await its seeding in the NCAA Tournament. Here are three things we learned from the Lady Vols’ loss.

1. Turnovers and bad shots made for a terrible offensive game.

Rennia Davis came into the game with over 20 points in each of her previous six outings. She had nine points and three turnovers in this one. That was indicative of how the night went. The Tennessee Lady Vols had two players score double figures, as Rae Burrell and Jordan Horston each had 11. Overall, though, it was an awful offensive performance.

UT forced way too many shots, going 20-of-55 from the field. They also went a mediocre 10-of-15 from the free throw line. Add in the 18 turnovers, and there were too many offensive mistakes for this team to have a chance. However, one shooting disparity assured that it would be impossible for them to have a chance.

2. Three-point shooting made it a blowout.

The first key involves things the Lady Vols could have avoided. If they did, they could have overcome this key. Since they didn’t, though, this one made it worse. South Carolina shot 7-of-16 from the three-point line. At one point, they were 7-of-10, just having one of those games when they couldn’t miss from the outside.

Meanwhile, the Lady Vols shot 2-of-14, a major drop-off from their first SEC Tournament game against Ole Miss. That just happens sometimes, but such a disparity kept South Carolina in control. One area of a shooting disparity that could have been avoided, to be fair, was South Carolina going 14-of-16 on free throws, but UT just had a bad day when it came to the threes.

3. A great defensive performance wasted.

Take away South Carolina’s three-point shooting, and the Lady Vols actually had a solid performance defensively. They held the Gamecocks to 16-of-47, or 34 percent, on two-pointers. Eight blocks helped that, as Tamari Key had four under the basket, and Jordan Horston had another three off the bench.

With that elite defensive play, the Lady Vols kept South Carolina from scoring for over seven minutes in the fourth quarter. However, when that drought started, they were down 62-41, and they scored six points during that time. That gets back to our first key. Their struggles on offense cost them the SEC Tournament.