NCAAW: No. 3 South Carolina meet No. 9 TCU in top-10 primetime test

After holding off the No. 8 Duke Blue Devils at home on Thursday as part of the SEC/ACC Challenge, the No. 3 South Carolina Gamecocks are off to Texas to meet another top-10 opponent. The No. 9 TCU Horned Frogs await in Forth Worth for the US LBM Coast to Coast Challenge Hoopfest Women’s Basketball Classic (7 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

It’s a mouthful, but the hoops should be delightful.

Last time they played a top-10 ranked team with a 6-foot-7 center, it seemed like South Carolina missed being the team with the 6-foot-7 center. Now-No. 1 UCLA and junior center Lauren Betts made the Gamecocks, their fans and observers even more appreciative of the value of Kamilla Cardoso. She not only was the “separator” for last season’s national champs because of what she could do, or could prevent, in actions on both ends of the floor, but also because the threat posed by her mere presence occupied the intense attention of opponents, which then made things easier on her teammates, whether that be by covering up for their miscues on defense or cleaning up an ill-advised shot with a putback basket on offense. South Carolina has struggled to carve out a consistent, Cardoso-less identity this season, with the loss to UCLA serving as the most glaring example.

Sunday night, when they face another 6-foot-7 center in TCU grad student Sedona Prince, South Carolina has an opportunity to demonstrate what they’ve learned about themselves since getting run out of Pauley Pavilion in mid-November.

Yet, for all the ways the Horned Frogs have impressed this season, rising from unranked to the top 10, their personnel around Prince is not as daunting as the Bruins’ pieces around Betts. While UCLA was just as big and athletic as South Carolina, TCU is not. Outside of Prince, only one Horned Frog who has averaged at least 15 minutes per game stands above 6-foot-0; that’s 6-foot-1 junior guard Taylor Bigby, whose primary skill is her shooting, rather than athletic, disruptive playmaking. This roster reality suggests that the Gamecocks, with a suite of forwards that includes juniors Chloe Kitts and Ashlyn Watkins and freshman Joyce Edwards, along with head coach’s Dawn Staley’s schemes, should be better positioned to nullify Prince’s impact.

South Carolina also is equipped to stall the other engine of TCU’s success in grad guard Hailey Van Lith. As our Josh Felton recently broke down, Van Lith has demonstrated significant improvement in her still-short stint with the Horned Frogs. Overburdened as a primary ball handler last season at LSU, those roughs reps have begun to pay off, as Van Lith has blossomed into a more effective offensive operator. In TCU’s comeback upset of then-No. 3 Notre Dame, Van Lith was in such control that she even found success against Hannah Hidalgo, the Irish sophomore guard who is one of the nation’s better point-of-attack defenders.

But, Hidalgo is just 5-foot-6, reliant on her ferocity, rather than her frame, to try and trouble the 5-foot-9 Van Lith. Staley, in contrast, can throw several big guards on Van Lith to prevent her from establishing a rhythm. Her first option has to be junior guard Raven Johnson, who may match Van Lith at 5-foot-9, but, due to her combination of length and strength, plays bigger than her height. Johnson, memorably, exacted revenge on Caitlin Clark in last season’s national championship game, sticking to the Iowa superstar like no player at the collegiate had been able to do. She should be ready to make things hard on Van Lith, with the likes of 5-foot-10 sophomore guard MiLaysia Fulwiley and 6-foot-0 senior guard Bree Hall also capable of taking on the Van Lith assignment for stretches.

TCU’s one of the nation’s lower turnover teams, with Van Lith sporting the nation’s fifth-best assist-to-turnover ratio, while South Carolina is one of the better teams at turning opponent’s over. When these two opposing forces meet, the Gamecocks need to establish the advantage, with those turnovers then becoming transition buckets where they don’t have to worry about Prince, the nation’s leading shot blocker, patrolling the paint. If that’s not the case and South Carolina, like Notre Dame, allows Van Lith to gain comfort running the TCU offense, the Gamecocks could be in trouble, struggling to match the points put up by the high-scoring Horned Frogs.