LAS VEGAS — South Carolina’s dominant, forceful, veteran, miracle 3-point shot making, rebound-snatching 6-foot-7 easy button of an offensive answer is gone.
For three years, whenever the Gamecocks needed a bucket, there was an answer. The get-out-of-jail-free card for any busted offensive set, the answer to nearly every question an opposing defense could present.
Throw the ball to Kamilla Cardoso, and let her go to work.
Now? All bets are off. And it nearly resulted in the Gamecocks tripping over the first hurdle of their championship defense, needing all 40 minutes to finally put away unranked Michigan with a 68-62 win.
“I saw a little bit of a lack of experience from our experienced players,” Dawn Staley said. “It’s different roles for them.”
The post room is not devoid of talent by any means. Chloe Kitts opened up her junior season with one of the best games of her career, a 19-point, 14-rebound outburst that kept South Carolina in the game while it struggled at both ends early. True freshman Joyce Edwards was immediately active defensively with her length and helped stretch the floor in transition at a point in the game when Michigan (0-1) clearly controlled the transition portion of proceedings.
But everything was work, even when Kitts and Edwards found their space. There was no simple offense, no counter to Michigan’s paint-packing zone defense, and most especially, nobody for opposing defenders to collapse on and open up better shots on the outside.
“There’s a really big difference,” Kitts said. “I’ve never played with someone like Kamilla. It was really awesome playing with her; she was just such a big part of our team. That presence is missing.”
And when it is missing, the margin for error decreases drastically. Sania Feagin has had — and will again have — better nights than Monday. The senior forward picked up two fouls before the game was four minutes old, and did not see the court again until the third quarter.
At any point in the last three years, an off night for Feagin would have been one cog in a larger machine, and more than survivable while she was coming off the bench.
Right now, an off night means two points and zero rebounds from a starter.
The same is true for the guard play. Nobody on this roster had better chemistry with Cardoso than Raven Johnson, her former AAU teammate and partner coming off the bench for most of the 2022-23 season. She struggled to get in the flow of the game, did not hit a shot from the floor and only finished with three assists, zero to other guards.
Your point guard not finding another backcourt player for a bucket all night is a blip when she has 6-foot-7 waiting in the frontcourt. Without it, you get a six-minute scoring drought in the fourth quarter.
“Kamilla was very dominant down there,” guard Tessa Johnson said. “If we were struggling, we could honestly just throw it up and she would rebound or make a shot or get fouled. When she was out there, it would calm us down a little bit. It did feel a little different. But we don’t have her anymore, so we’ve got to adjust to that.”
Fortunately for Staley and her team, March is a long way away. Monday was game one of a four-month process to round into the best shape possible to chase another championship.
Nobody in Columbia is interested in peaking in November, anyway.
But it might pay the price for these struggles. Michigan started five guards and only played one player over 6-foot-2, but still managed to hold the rebounding battle to a stalemate at 52-52. Second chance points, a stat the Gamecocks have owned like no other team in the country over the last two seasons, actually went Michigan’s way by a 21-17 count.
North Carolina State and its frontcourt-heavy team looms Sunday in a Final Four rematch. Two weeks after that, UCLA’s own 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts will get her chance against what will likely still be a work in progress for South Carolina.
No, the 3-point shooting probably will not continue to be as gaudy as it was against the Wolverines. No team shoots 19.2 percent over the course of a season, and certainly not one with this many talented shooters. Feagin will get more comfortable in her new role, and Johnson will develop chemistry with the new crop of post players. True freshman Adhel Tac and Arkansas transfer Maryam Dauda both figure to grow into more playing time after playing a combined nine minutes in game one.
This team is in a problem-solving phase, and it does have potential solutions
Emphasis on problem, though.
“I like that we’ve been challenged,” Staley said. “I like the fact that we’ve been exposed in certain areas.”
The team’s size shrunk, and so did its ability to withstand an off night.
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