South Carolina will hang around the elites for now. But for a powerhouse like the Gamecocks, having one bad game is a warning. Two consecutive bad performances? An ultimatum. And Dawn Staley just got served. The Gamecocks survived another scare on Friday, trailing 33-31 at the break before edging out Maryland in a hard-fought 71-67 win to advance into Elite Eight. But for Staley, the celebration came with an unsettling sense of déjà vu.

Sweet 16 was their second straight game where they found themselves playing catch-up. Just days before against Indiana, they were in the same spot, down 26-25 at the break, before clawing their way to victory, thanks only to their third quarter performance. Now see, watching Dawn and Co. dominate the game has become a custom. But there has been a thorn in their roster that doesn’t go away.

Back in February, after losing their first SEC contest since December 30, 2021, to Texas, Staley breathed a sigh of relief despite the loss, “The law of averages says at some point somebody is going to get you. I’m just glad they didn’t get us where we can’t survive. We still control our own destiny.” But is it true anymore? Because now, in the single-elimination NCAA Tournaments, they will not survive a loss. And for a team accustomed to controlling the game, these slow starts were a glaring red flag. Staley saw it, admitted it, but Raven Johnson wasn’t buying into the concern. She had a different take.

According to Wach Fox’s Claire Foley’s tweet, Staley was asked how the Gamecocks could get back to their standard with such a quick turnaround before facing Duke in Sunday’s Elite Eight. Her response was measured.

“I think we have to do a good job of just, you know, making sure they’re confident and how we do that is just making sure we’re prepared. This is what you’re going to see. It’s a possibility of you going to see whether they double you, whether they single coverage you, whether they press us. So we have to get them comfortable in what our game plan is and what is to be expected from Duke,” the HC said.

But while Staley spoke of confidence, Johnson’s take suggested something different. As Foley reported, Johnson wasn’t caught off guard by Maryland’s effort, nor was she shaken. Instead, she put the onus on the team to figure out what was wrong: “Oh yeah, we knew they were going to come hard. I mean, we didn’t really feel in sync today, so we needed to get in the gym and find what’s getting us out of sync.

“These are new rims, gotta get used to the rims. So I think we needed a game like this. I’m glad we had a game like this and came out with an outcome of winning. So I think we’re just going to get in the gym and work on what we need to work on.”

Top Comment by Thomas Ashford

When your guards don’t score on a consistent basis,as starters,you will start out slow,Raven,and Pao,and Bree,need to score and go...more

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South Carolina struggled offensively today, shooting just 38.5% from the field and an abysmal 26.7% from beyond the arc. The gap was glaring in the first half where they only shot 31.6% to Terrapins’ 35.7% from the field. Their 18 turnovers—four more than Maryland’s—prevented them from establishing rhythm. Not to mention, they could only convert their TOs, losing that battle to the Terrapins with a large gap of 18-7.

However, their dominance on the boards (47 rebounds to Maryland’s 34) and superior free-throw shooting (81% to Maryland’s 72.2%) ultimately kept them in the game. The Terrapins threatened through to the last second. The score was 63-66 with 25 seconds left.

Then came fouls (4), timeouts (4), miscommunication, and missed possessions that followed. The game was anyone’s until the final second. Even when the game was thought to be done and the coaches had shook hands, the officiating halted to review a call. The game clock read 33.3 seconds when it was 6:50 pm. But the game was not officially over until 7:11 pm, a 21-minutes difference, showing how the intensity built up in the final moments of the game. Though the Gamecocks came out with a win, it was a real test. But two of their stars kept the team afloat and Johnson is all praises for them.

Raven talked about teammates MiLaysia Fulwiley and Chloe Kitts for stepping up when it mattered: “Chloe, I feel like she’s a two out there, guard position. She’s so shifty. She can shoot the mid-range. She rebounds… She wants to win. Then MiLaysia, what she did today is giving buckets when we need it, like big buckets… So it’s things like that for this team. And I think we all need to get on what they have.”

Kitts posted a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds, playing a key role in the Gamecocks’ interior presence. In fact, she brought in the first 10 points for the team. Fulwiley, however, was the true difference-maker. Her 23 points, including a go-ahead layup with 2:22 left, ensured South Carolina’s title defense stayed alive. She also had a crucial 7-point run to push the Gamecocks ahead.

Staley herself credited Fulwiley’s spark, saying, “If it’s that kind of game, Lay is the perfect guard that you can call on to manufacture points and she did that. Everybody just started to flow around her.”

But a breakout performance by one player couldn’t mask the bigger concerns.

South Carolina and Staley survive, but championship pedigree remains in question

On Friday, Staley wasn’t pretending if this looked like a championship team. “Is it ugly? Yes. Are people going to say this doesn’t look like a national championship team? Well, we didn’t look like one last year to most in the beginning of the season. Probably didn’t look like one—we looked like one in ’22. 2017 we didn’t look like one. I think we’re back to where we don’t look like one, and hopefully, we can win it and even it out.”

As if to prepare Staley for a nightmare, Maryland head coach Brenda Frese, meanwhile, believed her team had scripted how to beat South Carolina, despite falling short. “We believed we could win this game. We showed that we could win this game, and I think we gave a pretty good blueprint on how to beat South Carolina, to be quite honest, for the teams moving forward.”

The stats lend weight to Frese’s claim. Maryland forced 18 turnovers. Their defense also held the Gamecocks to just 25 field goals on 65 attempts. However, their inability to control the glass proved costly. South Carolina’s 13 offensive rebounds gave them crucial second-chance opportunities, and the Gamecocks’ ability to get to the line—hitting 17-of-21 free throws—helped secure the win.

Now, South Carolina turns its attention to Duke in the Elite Eight, a matchup that will test whether their struggles are simply growing pains or deeper cracks in their title defense. South Carolina survived, but as Johnson made clear, survival alone won’t be enough. They need to figure out what’s wrong—and fast.