kentucky basketball tour

3 observations: Oscar Tshiebwe, Kentucky basketball dominate Game 2 of Bahamas tour

Kentucky basketball rode an obvious size advantage to another easy victory Thursday night during its exhibition tour of the Bahamas .

Outscoring Mexico’s Tec De Monterrey 60-12 in the paint, the Wildcats emerged victorious 102-40 in Game 2 at the Baha Mar Resort in Nassau. Tec had one player taller than 6 feet, 5 inches on its roster compared to UK's seven.

Reigning Naismith Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe posted a double-double with 10 points and 14 rebounds in 23 minutes. Tec De Monterrey, meanwhile, totaled just 19 rebounds as a team and had zero second-chance points to Kentucky's 35.

Seven Wildcats scored in double figures, and four players had double-doubles. Senior point guard Sahvir Wheeler and freshman forward Chris Livingston tied with a game-high 14 points apiece.

Kentucky basketball in the Bahamas: How to watch, livestream the Wildcats' exhibition tour

FOLLOW THE MADNESS: NCAA tournament brackets, scores, schedules, teams and more.

Game 2 highlights: Check out the top plays from Kentucky basketball vs. Tec De Monterrey in the Bahamas

Coaching beef: John Calipari called Kentucky a 'basketball school.' Mark Stoops fired back on Twitter

"I think the opponent, obviously, is us. It's us vs. us," said Kentucky assistant Chin Coleman , who was the acting head coach for Thursday's exhibition. "... Whether it's a 50-point win, a 20-point win, a 10-point win (or) a 20-point loss, there's always something that you can get from that to get better."

Here are three takeaways from the victory:

Kentucky asserts itself in the post early

After UK forced 11 first-half turnovers against the Dominican Republic National Select Team en route to a 52-point victory Wednesday night, Tec De Monterrey began the exhibition looking to limit the Wildcats’ transition opportunities.

It worked to an extent. Kentucky had just eight first-half takeaways but found another aspect of the game to dominate.

Game 1 recap: Three observations from Kentucky basketball's 52-point win to open Bahamas exhibition tour

Game 1 highlights: Check out the top plays from Kentucky basketball vs. Dominican Republic National Select in the Bahamas

Tshiebwe and Game 1 standout Daimion Collins led the charge in the post, combining to score 16 of Kentucky’s 36 first-half paint points while totaling 11 rebounds. When the final horn sounded, UK had 65 rebounds to Tec's 22.

The Wildcats’ block party also continued after they tallied 10 as a team against the Dominicans. Jacob Toppin had four on Thursday; Collins added two, and Livingston and fellow freshman Adou Thiero both chipped in one apiece.

Thiero’s block was especially encouraging considering it came off a defensive breakdown during the first half. When Tshiebwe moved out to the perimeter to defend Tec's Sebastian Mejia, it opened a driving lane that teammate Ivan Garcia planned to exploit. Garcia broke past Toppin for a moment and had what appeared to be an easy layup before Toppin and Thiero collapsed toward the basket.

Garcia got Toppin on a pump fake, but the 6-6 Thiero swatted his shot away.

Coleman said Thiero’s performance through two games of the trip has confirmed that the freshman is "a lot better than I thought he was, especially athletically and physically."

"He's a young kid — like deer in headlights, you know. He don't know what he's doing," Coleman said after Thursday's game. "He's just trying so hard; he's just playing with a ton of energy, a ton of passion. He's gonna make mistakes, but when you make mistakes, as long as your effort and energy is right, then you can make plays. He's making plays, and I'm happy for him."

Jacob Toppin’s versatility on display

Toppin had a productive Game 1 to begin the exhibition tour but improved upon that performance Thursday night.

The 6-9 junior forward was the only Kentucky player to make more than one 3-pointer and finished the game with a double-double: 12 points on 5-for-12 shooting and 11 rebounds in 24 minutes. He also threw down an alley-oop dunk off a pass from freshman Cason Wallace during a fast break that developed so quickly the Wildcats had the towel crew scampering off the court as they attacked the basket.

Jacob Toppin: Why Oscar Tshiebwe thinks the junior forward has been UK basketball's best player this summer

Toppin received high praise from one teammate in particular heading into the Bahamas trip. Tshiebwe said the Rhode Island transfer was "unstoppable in the gym" during the team's summer workouts.

"You guys are going to be impressed to see him play basketball this year," Tshiebwe said of Toppin in mid-July. "He’s right now like our best player."

Toppin improved his shooting percentage by 10 points from his first to his second season at Kentucky, during which he averaged 6.2 points per game coming off the bench. If the Wildcats’ high-flying dunker from Brooklyn is able to further establish himself as a mid-range threat and a consistent scorer from beyond the arc, UK will have yet another matchup nightmare to throw at opposing teams.

"He has to extend his game; he has to get better at that part of the game," Coleman said of Toppin's shooting ability before the trip. "But he just can’t love it. He can like it. He just can’t love it. There’s a fine line that we’re trying to get him, in a happy medium of where he likes the 3 but just doesn’t fall in love with it.

"There’s a saying I have that the guys know I sometimes use it in scouts: 'Love the rim, like the 3.' That’s a huge disciple. That needs to be his next tattoo: 'Love the rim, like the 3.'"

Sahvir Wheeler returns to form after Game 1 injury

If there were any lingering concerns over Wheeler checking out of Wednesday’s game momentarily with an injury and totaling just six points on 2-for-6 shooting in 21 minutes, the 5-9 senior point guard put them to rest in Game 2.

Wheeler, the Southeastern Conference’s assist leader last season, was the Wildcats’ primary playmaker Thursday. The Houston native posted a double-double with 14 points and 10 assists in 26 minutes and looked more than comfortable running the floor.

Sahvir Wheeler: UK coach Chin Coleman thinks this lesson can turn the senior into the best point guard in the country

One sequence in particular stood out late in the second half. Wheeler was out in front on a fast break and appeared to be going full steam ahead for a layup. Instead, he wrapped a pass around his defender in stride to a wide open Livingston, who proceeded to bury a corner 3.

Kentucky's exhibition tour continues at 6 p.m. Thursday, when the Wildcats take on Canada’s Carleton University. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.

Reach recruiting and trending sports reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @brooksHolton.

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• Cumulative stats and postgame notes from Kentucky’s Bahamas Tour

We saw a nice glimpse of the immense potential this Kentucky team has.

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The Kentucky Wildcats ’ Bahamas Tour has come and gone. With it came a heightened level of excitement for what this team will eventually become heading into the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

Through four games across five days, the Wildcats did just about everything fans could hope to see and then some.

That culminated with Sunday’s 98-74 win over a Bahamas National Team that was clearly the best competition Kentucky faced in Nassau, and John Calipari seemed to agree.

Just watched the tape of the last game. That team we played was an experienced, physical group. With the quick turn, I wanted to see if we had fight…and I loved what I saw. I loved that it was close and we had to pull away. — John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) August 15, 2022

Now, here are the postgame notes from Sunday’s game via UK Athletics.

FINAL SCORE: Kentucky 98, The Bahamas National Select Team 74

• This was Kentucky’s final exhibition game of the Big Blue Bahamas foreign exhibition tour.
• UK improved to 13-1 in the Bahamas foreign tours. The Wildcats went 5-1 in their first foreign tour in the Bahamas in 2014 and 4-0 in their second stint in 2018.
• Kentucky is 144-12 all-time in exhibition games and has won 23 straight. UK is 41-1 in exhibition contests under head coach John Calipari.

First-Half Facts

• UK utilized a starting lineup of Sahvir Wheeler, Cason Wallace, Jacob Toppin, Daimion Collins and Oscar Tshiebwe .
• The Bahamians opened the scoring with a 3-pointer, but Wheeler scored a quick layup in transition, then Toppin found Tshiebwe for an ally-oop and Collins also got out in transition for a dunk and a 6-3 UK lead. The Bahamas took a timeout at the 17:46 mark.
• At the first media timeout, UK led 10-7. Kentucky made five of its first 11 field-goal attempts and was 0 of 4 from behind the arc.
• The Cats endured a stretch in which they made just one of eight field-goals, but Wallace found Chris Livingston for a corner 3 to end the draught and lift UK to a 15-9 lead.
• The Bahamas continued to chip away and eventually took the lead with 8:15 in the opening half at 26-23 behind a traditional three-point play.
• The lead stretched to as many as eight at 32-24 with 5:28 in the opening half.
• UK utilized an 11-0 run over 3:23 of clock, which was sparked by back-to-back transition baskets to retake the lead 37-34 with 1:26 to go.
• A Wheeler layup to just beat the buzzer gave the Cats a 41-40 edge at the break. Kentucky held The Bahamas to just one field over the final 4:41 of the first half.
• Kentucky’s defense was once again pesky, forcing The Bahamas into 12 first-half turnovers. It led to 21 fastbreak points for the Cats.
• Playing its fourth game in five days, Kentucky’s outside shooting was hard to come by. UK shot 37.5% (15-40) from the floor and 1-13 (7.7%) from long range.
• Wheeler led the way in the points’ column with 13 points. Toppin added nine and Reeves chipped in with six.
• The Bahamas owned a 20-19 edge on the boards, but Tshiebwe corralled nine in the opening half.

Second-Half Story

• Kentucky began the second half with Wheeler, Wallace, Livingston, Toppin and Tshiebwe.
• UK forced turnovers on each of The Bahamas first three possessions of the second half.
• With The Bahamas keeping things close, Reeves helped break the game open with three straight possessions by draining a 3-pointer to lift UK to a 70-59 lead with 11:05 to play.
• Consecutive Wheeler dishes for dunks to Collins and Toppin ignited the crowd as Kentucky took its largest lead of the contest by a 78-63 score and 8:02 remaining.
• Kentucky shot 66.7% (20-30) from the field and 6-10 (60.0%) from 3-point range in the second half.
• UK also dominated the boards by a 24-8 margin.

• Kentucky shot 50% from the field (35-70), and 84.0% from the free-throw line (21-25).
• UK averaged 106.5 points per game behind a 54.8% field-goal clip. The Wildcats also connected on 38.1% from behind the arc with an average of 10 made 3s a game. Kentucky shot 84.8% as a team from the free-throw line over the four games.
• The Cats forced 21 turnovers and turned that into 35 points, including 33 in the fastbreak variety.
• Kentucky averaged 21.3 turnovers forced per game in its four games this week.
• Three players scored 20 or more points, Reeves (22), Wheeler (21) and Toppin (20).
• Six players averaged double-digit scoring, with Livingston almost making it a seventh with a 9.8 points per game average.
• Kentucky dominated the boards with a 43-28 advantage after getting outrebounded in the opening half. Tshiebwe led the way with 12.
• UK averaged a plus-19.8 rebound margin in its four games.
• The Wildcats recorded 11 steals and seven blocked shots.
• Kentucky averaged 14.0 steals and 7.3 blocks per game in its four wins this week.

Player Notes

• Antonio Reeves was tabbed the tournament’s most valuable player. He scored 22 points and sank four 3-pointers in the win against The Bahamas.
• He was UK’s leading scorer, averaging 17.0 points per game this week.
• He made four or more 3s in three of the four games.
• He made 51.9% from behind the arc this week.
• Sahvir Wheeler scored 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting, while adding four assists, two steals and a blocked shot.
• Wheeler accounted for 24 assists and just six turnovers in the four games.
• He averaged 14.5 points per game and 6.0 assists per game.
• Jacob Toppin had 20 points, five boards, two steals and a blocked shot.
• He averaged 16.8 points per game and shot 53.3% from long range over the four games.
• Oscar Tshiebwe registered his second double-double of the week with 11 points and a game-high 12 rebounds.
• He posted 11.5 points per game and 11.3 rebounds per game this week.
• Daimion Collins had eight points, six rebounds and a game-high-tying two blocked shots.
• Cason Wallace had five assists and a team-high four rebounds to go along with five points.
• He averaged 10.5 points per game and led the team with 12 steals in the four games.
• He also made 40% from behind the arc this week.

And here are the cumulative stats from the Bahamas Tour.

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Kentucky men's basketball announces autograph tour this weekend to raise money for Mayfield Flooding Relief

LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Kentucky men's basketball just announced the La Familia Autograph Tour happening this weekend at Kroger locations throughout the state.

Several members of this year's team are participating in the tour, including Aaron Bradshaw, Reed Sheppard, Adou Thiero, Justin Edwards, Jordan Burks, Tre Mitchell, Grant Darbyshire, and Walker Horn.

Different groups will be at Kroger locations on July 28, 29, and 30. Locations include Somerset (Stonegate Center), Morehead, Louisville (Brownsboro Rd), Shelbyville, Lexington (Beaumont), and Versailles.

$60 will get you one item signed by all players in attendance and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Mayfield Flood Relief Mission to provide aid after the recent flooding. Presenting sponsors Kroger and Simple Truth will also be making a donation to the relief fund.

For more information, click here.

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Kentucky basketball's Antonio Reeves and Oakland sharpshooter Jack Gohlke to meet again

Kentucky basketball guard Antonio Reeves and Oakland guard Jack Gohlke will square off again during Final Four weekend in Phoenix.

Reeves and Gohlke are scheduled to participate in the Hanes Men's 3-Point Championship at 9 p.m. (EDT) Thursday at Grand Canyon University.

The complete list of participants will be released soon.

The last time Reeves and Gohlke met, Gohlke scored a game-high 32 points and made 10 of 20 3-pointers, leading the Golden Grizzlies to a first-round NCAA Tournament victory in Pittsburgh.

Reeves scored a team-high 27 points on 11-of-18 shooting.

FOLLOW THE MADNESS: NCAA basketball bracket, scores, schedules, teams and more.

Reeves averaged 20.2 points per game this season, shooting 44.7% from beyond the arc.

In two seasons with UK, Reeves scored 1,155 points, the second most in a two-year span in program history.

Reeves is the fifth Wildcat to compete in the 3-point contest: Gerald Fitch (2004), Scott Padgett (1999), Travis Ford (1994) and Davion Mintz (2022) are the previous participants.

The winners of the Hanes Men's and Women's 3-Point Championships will then compete in the Skechers Battle of the Champions.

Reach sports reporter Prince James Story at [email protected] and follow him on X at @PrinceJStory.

🏀 Men's Tournament

UConn vs. Purdue in title game | 9:20 p.m. ET

🏆 The legacy a title would leave at UConn, Purdue

👀 See bracket

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Mike Lopresti | NCAA.com | April 7, 2024

• Redemption or domination — the different paths Purdue and UConn took to meet up for the title

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The two biggest bullies in this Final Four city, the two juggernauts with glittering numbers and renowned giants and promises to keep, clawed their way through Saturday night and on to the final showdown. The one everyone wanted to see, except for maybe Alabama and North Carolina State.

Purdue went first, grinding its way past NC State 63-50 even when the shots didn’t fall and the turnover total edged into the red zone and the normally steady point guard had a night from Final Four hell. The Boilermakers leaned on one another and found a way.

“That,” Mason Gillis said afterward in the locker room, “was the epitome of us.”

Connecticut came next and while Alabama did not go gently, it ended 86-72, meaning you could throw an 11th consecutive NCAA tournament victory by double digits on the pile. The Huskies are but 40 minutes away from possibly becoming the first repeat champions in 17 years and second in three decades.

“This is why everyone, including me, came to UConn,” said Donovan Clingan, who tormented the Tide with 18 points and four block shots. “To try to be a part of history.”

So after five months of winding roads in college basketball, it has come to this in the desert. A classic duel anchored around two towers. On one side, what many consider to be the best team. On the other, who many consider to be the best player. On one side, a defending champion eager to, as its coach has said many times lately, “make history in a place where it’s hard to make history.” On the other side, a program that has waited through 85 years of the NCAA tournament to be the last team standing at the end. Waiting most especially the past 12 months.

Monday night could be a rather remarkable display of déjà vu. Is it really possible that Virginia would be the first No. 1 seed to suffer the indignity of a loss to a No. 16 seed in the first round, then turn it into national championship redemption the very next season, and then five years later Purdue would do exactly the same thing?

The 2024 Boilermakers look more like the 2019 Cavaliers by the day, and sound like them, too. Especially the veterans who lived through that Fairleigh Dickinson nightmare in Columbus, Ohio.

Fletcher Loyer did, so he knows what Monday night means. “It's everything. It's everything we've worked for, everything we thought about. A lot of late nights, can't even sleep because you're thinking about it. It's been tough. But we fought. We're going to keep fighting. We've got 40 more minutes until we're national champs. We're going to push everybody as far as we can, and we're going to play as hard as we can.”

Gillis did, so he understands what it has taken. “We didn’t run from it. We talked about how we felt about losing, we talked about how we were going to grow from it. We didn’t just talk about it, we walked the walk. I don’t want to say we wouldn’t be in this situation if we didn’t lose to them, but it definitely fueled us; sitting in that loss, seeing it on social media 24/7, seeing it on TV.

“Even throughout this year, everybody wanted to say yeah, they’ve done this, but they lost to FDU last year. Yeah, they did this but they lost to FDU last year. So we’re just proving everybody wrong and proving ourselves right,  having each other’s back and we’ll get the job done.”

Zach Edey did. He has felt deeply the drive to atone and knows there is but one acceptable ending. A Virginia ending. “No one's celebrating right now,” he said Saturday night.

It wasn’t exactly pretty, how the Boilermakers made it to the championship game. But who wants to try to tell a team that has infamously lost three consecutive years to double-digit seeds that any win at the Final Four could be ugly? Matter of fact, you could make the case Saturday night’s hard labor was a vivid example of Purdue’s growth since the disaster of 2023.

Turnovers have been known to be fatal to the Boilermakers’ cause. One of coach Matt Painter’s favorite stats to mention lately is how his team was 27-0 this season when making 13 turnovers or under. Purdue hit 13 turnovers Saturday night with 13 minutes left to play, and ended with 16. Point guard Braden Smith had five before halftime. You don’t see over-and-back violations often in a Final Four. Smith had two of those in the first five minutes. Not only that, he was 0-for-6 shooting at halftime. Edey was being kept from any paint explosion by the North Carolina State defense as well. He was on his way to 20 points, good, but not overwhelming.

“Every possibility in a game has happened to us the past two years,” Smith said. “When the shots aren’t falling and we’re turning the ball over you have to find a different way to win. We had to pick up the defense, rebound and push the ball.”

So they did. They got some big shots from Lance Jones — 14 points, four 3-pointers — who was a million miles away from the Final Four last year at Southern Illinois. “The moment wasn’t too big for him,” Painter said. The defense held the Wolfpack under 29 percent shooting in the second half.

“You got to give our guys credit for hanging in there and grinding one out,” Painter said. “When it's freewheeling and you're scoring the basketball, it's more enjoyable to watch, more enjoyable to play, more enjoyable to coach. To be able to win six games, you're going to have a game in there, a game or two, where you don't play as well offensively. You got to find a way to win.”

There was something else that got Purdue through; the chemistry of a team glued-together by adversity. As Smith’s woes grew, his teammates rallied around. “I was just trying to stay in his ear the entire game,” Gillis said. “We have a little phrase, strong face. Whether things are going good for you or things are going bad for you, we have to maintain a strong face. It’s body language but we say strong face. I just kept telling him strong face, remember what you’ve done all year.”

Smith’s shooting never came back, finishing 1-for-9. But he didn’t have a single turnover the second half, and afterward he spoke of how good it was “just having a group of guys like that around you when a night like this does happen.”

And what of Monday's opponent, the No. 1 ranked team that was coming off a two-week pleasure cruise through the bracket? Apparently Alabama didn’t get the memo that Connecticut is supposed to win all its NCAA tournament games by 30. The Tide led for 4:18 seconds in the first half, which was 3:50 longer than the Huskies had trailed in their first four tournament games combined. Still, it had to be a little discouraging to shoot 73 percent from the arc and still trail by four at halftime. Besides, the Huskies weren’t fazed much.

“Shooting 73 percent is not sustainable,” Clingan said.

“I think the feeling just with the group is it's body blows, it's body blows, it's continue to guard, continue to rebound, execute our offense,” coach Dan Hurley said. “Eventually there will be a breaking point opportunity that will present itself, especially in this tournament.”

The Tide didn’t go away, especially Mark Sears, one of those former mid-major transfers on the Alabama roster who was here to prove a point. He scored 24 of them actually. They were tied with UConn 56-56 midway through the second half, thinking if they pushed along enough, maybe Connecticut might give a little. Hardly. The Huskies had one of those little bursts that have been so lethal — this a mini version at 8-0 in 97 seconds — and they were in front to stay. Alabama had made a valiant effort, especially Sears, but it all seemed so . . . inevitable.

“We don’t crumble,” Clingan said.

“I think we've got a lot of confidence,” Hurley said. “There's a factor with teams now that they've seen us play, where we get on a run, I think it's disheartening for the other team because they've seen it, they've seen us do it a lot.”

So Connecticut is back in the title game and nobody has done that since Florida in 2007. Some of the faces have changed from last season, but not the tenor of the program. “The culture, the preparation, the commitment to every aspect of the game so that we keep ourselves as bulletproof as possible in this tournament,” Hurley said, “which we make a hard tournament look easy. It's crazy.”

Only Purdue is left to face. Which means the 7-2 Clingan against the 7-4 Edey, a match made in TV network heaven. Clingan said in the locker room that he would be watching Purdue film on the bus on the way back to the hotel Saturday. He said the possibility of facing Edey has been in the back of his mind for a couple of weeks, “but I will say I’m pretty good at realizing what’s in front of me, one game at a time, realizing not to look too far ahead.”

But now it’s here. They’ve never met, Clingan said, though he does remember passing Edey at the Portland tournament last season. “I walked by him and I was like, wow. I’m excited for the matchup. I’ve got a lot of respect for Zach,” he said.

“It makes you want to go out there and give everything you have. On Monday night, I want to know in my head that I gave everything I’ve got. If I can’t walk off the floor, that’s all right.”

Edey, too. “The reason I came back is playing games like this,” he said.

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Raven Johnson and South Carolina Cap ‘Revenge Tour’ in Perfect Fashion With Women’s Title

• Author: Kristen Nelson

In this story:

When the matchup was set Friday, basketball fans (and television execs) everywhere were drooling over seeing the Iowa Hawkeyes take on the South Carolina Gamecocks. This game was set up to be an instant classic, no matter what the outcome was. 

But there was no one more excited for this than Raven Johnson. 

“All I have to say is: The revenge tour is over,” the sophomore point guard declared after the Gamecocks defeated the Hawkeyes 87–75 in the NCAA women’s national title game. 

After South Carolina’s Final Four loss to Iowa last year, Johnson couldn’t stop watching and rewatching the game. It didn’t matter that Johnson, then a redshirt freshman, had a respectable 13 points and was shooting 50% from three. Caitlin Clark had waved her off at the top of the circle, signifying that Johnson wasn’t a threat from the outside. A clip of the play went viral online and Johnson was embarrassed. And then she became obsessed. She watched the game over and over and over. She even started to wonder if she should keep playing basketball. 

But she didn’t quit. Instead, Johnson declared the 2023–24 season her revenge tour, an apology, she said, to herself, her teammates and most of all, her coach. She and the Gamecocks were going to prove they are not to be waved off. Not this season, even with a whole new starting lineup. And not on Sunday in Cleveland, even after being down by as much as 11 points in the first half. 

No, South Carolina got its revenge on the biggest stage possible, taking down Clark and waving away the fairy-tale finish that could have been by sending Clark out with a national title before becoming the presumed No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA draft next week. 

The Gamecocks were the ones to write a storybook ending: an undefeated season fueled by redemption and completed with a championship. After turning over the entire starting lineup from last year’s Final Four squad—graduating the legendary “Freshies” crew led by Aliyah Boston—many expected this to be a transition season for Dawn Staley. Instead, she put together one of the best women’s basketball teams we may have ever seen and just the 10th in the history of the game to finish undefeated. 

Johnson steals the ball from Clark during Sunday’s women’s national championship game.

Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

The weight of how last season ended hit Staley as the clock hit zeros and the coach was able to let out the emotions she carried all season long —right up until she won her third national title for the Gamecocks.

“I mean, it’s heavy, it’s heavy,” Staley said after the win. “You carry the burden of every single one of your players, all the coaches and staff members that put so much into our team. And it’s a heavy load to be undefeated, to finish the job.” 

Staley’s players said Sunday’s win was the first time they had ever seen their coach cry or get that emotional. In fact, all season long, players talked about how much looser she was compared to years past. When the Gamecocks had a one-point lead heading into halftime against the NC State Wolfpack in the Final Four, there was no yelling or screaming in the locker room. It was clear to Staley what adjustments needed to be made: find the open person and have a plan before you get the ball. 

But keeping calm and simple has not always been the way Staley has approached these moments in her coaching career. 

“No, I haven’t always been that way, good Lord. I’ve had to lay down my religion a few times at halftime,” Staley said Saturday. “But you approach each team in how they receive information. You deliver it in how they receive it because ultimately you just want them to get the message. Sometimes we as coaches mess up the message with how angry we can get, how competitive we can get in those moments.”

Starting last summer essentially from scratch, Staley had to figure out how to motivate a team of freshmen, transfers and players who never started last season. It certainly wasn’t an easy task, but she found the perfect way to get them to bond. 

“I wouldn’t say they were miserable, and misery loves company, but it was—more than the majority was out of shape,” Staley said. 

The team didn’t touch a ball in the summer. Instead, Staley gave her players grueling workouts and “Final Four Fridays,” which consisted of 5 a.m. wake-up calls and heading to Colonial Life Arena, where they carried a rope around through all the seats, going up and down the stairs while also holding kettlebells and medicine balls and making sure to never let the rope touch the ground.

Staley built a team that was made to find instant chemistry off the court—her daycare, she lovingly referred to them as. And with a team fortified by that summer of conditioning, they learned how to withstand pressure on the court. That lethal combo was in full force Sunday. 

Iowa came out fast and hard. Clark got in a rhythm early, scoring 18 points in the first quarter, 11 of those in the span of just 67 seconds. There wasn’t much stopping the Hawkeyes star in the first quarter, but South Carolina is built to withstand early pressure. The Gamecocks started the second quarter with a 7–0 run and erased what Clark had built in the first. Fittingly, Johnson closed out the first half when she got an easy steal from Clark and scored on the fast break, extending South Carolina’s lead to 49–46 heading into the locker room. South Carolina held Clark to just three points in the second quarter. And who was in charge of guarding her? Johnson, of course. 

Johnson and Cardoso embrace after winning the national championship.

“For Raven, I think it was psychologically helpful to be able to play Iowa and Caitlin, to just release,” Staley said of the matchup. “As a player, you want to release certain things that have held you captive. And I do think the waving off in the Final Four last year held her captive.

“… Then for her to actually lock in and play Caitlin the way we needed her to play her—we knew [Clark] was going to get her points. We wanted her to get her points in an inefficient way.”

The second half went similarly for South Carolina, coming out with a 6–0 run and forcing Iowa coach Lisa Bluder to call a timeout just two minutes into the third quarter. The Gamecocks never gave up their lead, locking in defensively and in the paint. Sophomore Chloe Kitts had 10 rebounds and pitched in 11 points. Senior Kamilla Cardoso, who was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, ended her time as a Gamecock with a career-high 17 rebounds, playing through a knee injury she picked up Friday against the Wolfpack. 

While the Gamecocks’ signature team defense took care of Clark & Co., their other defining feature for the season—their depth—finished the job. South Carolina’s bench outscored the Hawkeyes, 37–0. Freshman MiLaysia Fulwiley, who quickly became a household name thanks to her highlight-filled debut against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at the start of the season, contributed nine points and four assists. But it was her fellow freshman, Tessa Johnson, who finished as the team’s leading scorer, finishing with 19 points off the bench. 

“Tessa was due for a breakout game,” senior guard Te-Hina Paopao said of Johnson, who averaged 6.2 points per game heading into Sunday. “What better to do it than on a national stage?” 

Since the start of the NCAA tournament, Staley noticed her players were locked in even more than they had been during the regular season. They were focused and taking notes, taking things more seriously. 

“It wasn’t daycare this morning,” Staley said Saturday after her team’s film session. “I don’t know if it’s just because they just woke up, but they’re locked in.” 

And there was at least one player who has been locked since the last tournament. But with the revenge tour over, what will next season be for Raven Johnson? 

“You know, I haven’t thought about that yet,” Johnson said. “I’m gonna cherish the moment right now.” 

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