NCAAW: Dawn Staley, South Carolina can show superiority at Players Era

The Players Era Women’s Championship is a first-of-a-kind tournament, with each of the participating teams—No. 2 South Carolina, No. 3 UCLA, No. 4 Texas and Duke—receiving $1 million for playing in the Final Four-style event held at Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas, NV. That means each player will earn around $75,000 for playing a pair of games.

The corporate-sponsored event is reflective of this new, NIL-infused age of college sports, where the time, energy and emotions athletes put into representing their schools rewards them financially. However, whether their teams were playing for a million dollars or single dollar, don’t expect head coaches Dawn Staley or Kara Lawson to permit anything less than prepared basketball from their players.

Staley’s Gamecocks play Lawson’s Blue Devils in the second game of the Players Era Championship at 4:30 p.m. ET (truTV). The winner will face the winner of the first game between No. 3 UCLA and No. 4 Texas in the championship game on Friday night, with both losers meeting in Friday’s consolation game.

So far, that emphasis on preparation has paid off for Staley and South Carolina, but not Lawson and Duke.

After beginning the season ranked No. 8, Duke has tumbled out of the top 25, with their opening day loss to then-No. 16 Baylor followed by losses to then-unranked West Virginia and still-unranked South Florida. Duke has yet to earn an impressive victory, with their three wins coming over Holy Cross, Norfolk State and Liberty.

That resume suggests that the Blue Devils are ill equipped to compete with the Gamecocks. Except, Duke still is elite defensively, with a top-20 defensive rating that should allow them to challenge the nation’s best. The other end of the floor, however, is a huge problem. The Blue Devils struggle to put the ball in the basket, shooting poorly on 2-pointers, 3-pointers and from the free throw line. They also turn the ball over too much. So even if they manage to cause trouble for South Carolina’s offense, the Blue Devils are unlikely to be able to consistently take advantage, with missed shots or wayward passes instead allowing the Gamecocks to get their transition offense going.

The lack of offensive growth from players who arrived at Duke as promising prospects is particularly concerning. Sophomore forward Toby Fournier, the player most likely to become an offensive star for the Blue Devils, instead looks more like a defensive specialist, as she is finishing inefficiently. That also describes junior wing Jadyn Donovan, a strong defender who is a non-threat on offense due to her poor shooting percentages. As senior guards Ashlon Jackson and Taina Mair are both volume scorers, Duke lacks efficient sources of offensive production.

In contrast, South Carolina has so far shown off one of the more high-powered offenses of the Staley era.

The Gamecocks certainly have benefitted from the bucket-getting instincts of senior guard Ta’Niya Latson, who led the nation in scoring last season, but they’ve also seen offensive leaps from returning players. At the top of that list is sophomore forward Joyce Edwards. As a freshman, she inconsistently harnessed her elite athleticism, with flashes of composed offense balanced by more rushed, unrefined efforts. This season, it’s all coming together, evidenced by her leading South Carolina in scoring with almost 20 points per game on 61.3 percent shooting.

Junior guard Tessa Johnson remains one of the purest 3-point shooters in the sport, while senior guard Raven Johnson has shown an improved stroke from deep. The less-experienced big combo of senior Madina Okot and sophomore Adhel Tac are likewise scoring efficiently. Overall, the Gamecocks are the second-best shooting team in the nation.

And in games when the offense isn’t quite firing on all cylinders, the Gamecocks can rely on their ever-elite defense. Most resoundingly, they allowed only a two-point fourth quarter to Clemson. In their first trip out west, they proved they’re the “Real SC” by holding Southern Cal to their season-low point total. As has been characteristic of all South Carolina teams, they absolutely own the paint, ranking second in the nation in blocks and defensive boards per game. Opponents are also shooting 27 percent from the field against the Gamecocks, the worst mark in the nation.

All the evidence thus suggests that some extraordinary outlier occurrences will have happen for Duke to have a chance of dethroning South Carolina. Otherwise, expect South Carolina to cruise into the Players Era Championship final against the winner of Texas vs. UCLA.