South Carolina Might Have Too Many Good Players

The Maryland Terrapins matched the South Carolina Gamecocks shot for shot and pound for pound in the women’s Sweet 16, but in the end, the Gamecocks had too many good players for the Terrapins to handle. South Carolina has too many good players for most teams to handle.

Sometimes, it seems like South Carolina has too many good players for South Carolina to handle.

That sounds like a strange problem, because it is. It’s a small problem wrapped inside a large solution—the Gamecocks have the nation’s deepest roster—but it can still be a problem, and it showed up at times in South Carolina’s 71–67 victory Friday.

Dawn Staley manages her team in an unusual way: Her most disciplined players start the game, to establish a standard, especially defensively, and then she brings an even more talented group off the bench. She said Friday that if she told her starters how much offensive leeway she allows her reserves, “They might want to come off the bench and play with that same freedom.” But the reserves can only exercise that freedom if they live up to the defensive standard that the starters set.

Staley’s way has obviously worked for years. But it means she has so many possible combinations that in a difficult game (and South Carolina doesn’t play many of those) it can be hard to find the combination that works. For most of the game, Staley said, “we had no flow from an offensive standpoint.” This was because they have so many ways to score. At one point, Sania Feagin passed up an easy shot to give Chloe Kitts a harder one.

“If you’re single covered,” Staley said, “you gotta go get us a bucket. But we’re unselfish, and we try to just make a play.”

By the final minute Friday, Staley had settled on a combination of players to beat Maryland. But it was not really the right combination to finish a close game, which led to an error-filled final minute.

With 55 seconds left, South Carolina led 64–60 and had the ball. This was a straightforward basketball situation: Dribble until the shot clock winds down, then drive and try to score and/or get fouled. Te-Hina Paopao dribbled, drove, and passed to MiLaysia Fulwiley, who was parked in the far corner. Good play, but strange roles: Fulwiley is the best dribble-drive player on the team, and Paopao is a better three-point shooter, yet Staley had Paopao handle the ball while the wildly quick Fulwiley stood still. Paopao was called for a charge.

With 35 seconds left, as officials reviewed a play, Staley reminded her players that they had a foul to give and should use it when Maryland got the ball back. South Carolina’s Kitts hit two free throws to give her team a 66–60 lead. Then Maryland got the ball … and Fulwiley chased Sarah Te-Biasu around without fouling her … and Feagin provided help and also chased Te-Biasu around without fouling her. Te-Biasu passed to Saylor Poffenbarger who hit a three-pointer to cut South Carolina’s lead to 66–63.

Staley called timeout. This was another straightforward basketball situation that we have all seen a million times: Maryland had to foul somebody. South Carolina just needed to inbound the ball successfully to one of its best free-throw shooters.

The Gamecocks inbounded the ball successfully … to Bree Hall, one of the worst free-throw shooters on the team. She missed the first and made the second.

Finally, with 10 seconds left, Fulwiley inexplicably let an inbounds pass bounce before touching it, as though she was trying to save time instead of kill it.

Staley has won three national championships and coached the U.S. Olympic team to gold. Obviously, she knows what she is doing. Paopao and Hall are both seniors; it makes sense, on some level, to trust their decision-making over younger players with better skill sets.

But South Carolina simply did not look like a team that knew how to handle common end-of-game situations—and that might be partly because the coach has so many different possible combinations to put on the floor.

“The challenge is to make sure you get it right,” Staley said. “You gotta figure it out. If they don’t look good, they’ve got to come out. We’ve got too much depth to kind of allow people to work through like multiple mistakes—not one, not two, but you know, when you’re talking three and four on either side of the ball.”

It makes sense, and it usually works: Play hard and smart, or another really talented player will take your spot. Staley admitted her team did not look like a national champion against Maryland. The Gamecocks won anyway. But to beat UConn or Texas or UCLA, they’re going to have to play better than this.