“Officiating Favoring South Carolina Is Disgusting”: Dawn Staley and Co.’s March Madness Win Gets Overshadowed by Fans Due to Controversial Calls

South Carolina women’s basketball is headed back to the Final Four following a 70-58 win over Oregon State. This will be their fourth straight Final Four. Oregon State had the youngest team in the country. A lot of predictions were for them to finish 10th in their conference and yet they made it to the Elite 8. Fans of the Beavers are proud and angry at the same time.

They seem to believe that the referees favored Dawn Staley and Co. throughout the game. One fan wrote, “If I’m Rueck, I would have gotten a technical right now. The officiating favoring South Carolina is disgusting on every level.”

OSU couldn’t overcome the first-half foul trouble of its two most prominent bigs, Raegan Beers and Timea Gardiner. Both were tagged with three first-half fouls and were on thin ice throughout the second half. However, they were able to finish out the game as Beers finished with 16 points and 8 rebounds, while Gardiner had 10 points and 12 assists.

For the Gamecocks, it was Kamilla Cardoso who led the charge with 12 points and 9 rebounds. Nonetheless, the big talking point coming out of this game was the officiating and fans are complaining as whenever Beavers seemed to build momentum, referees would whistle against their team.

Oregan Fans outrage over Dawn Staley and Co.’s win

The halftime score was 37-33, with South Carolina leading, and it appeared that the third quarter would be close too. But Dawn Staley had a plan and the Gamecocks won it 21-13 which proved to be a disaster for OSU. Fans on X throughout the game were calling for supposedly unfair calls by the officials. One fan said Beers and Gardiner should have had only 1 foul each instead of 3. Questioning how contesting for a shot is foul? Calling the referees blind with the image.

Another one questioned why would the N0.1 team need the help of the officials to beat the Beavers.

Implying the referees were blind was a recurring theme and one fan wrote how South Carolina was the over-aggressive team and yet they weren’t punished.

Betting on South Carolina to win, that’s what one fan’s theory was

Using Shaq as a meme template and calling out referees to think OSU fans are fools was a sentiment shared by one fan

The performance of Beavers throughout the tournament was special. They were picked 10th in the preseason poll in the last year for the Pac-12, yet finished fourth, upsetting No. 2 seed Notre Dame on Friday to make the Elite Eight.

It is the sixth Final Four for Dawn Staley, being champions twice during the 16-17 and 21-22 seasons. Do you think OSU lost due to harsh calls by referees or the Gamecocks were better?

Read More: Angel Reese vs Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers vs JuJu Watkins in Elite 8 – Fans Gear Up for Historic March Madness Day