To South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, the reason for the Gamecocks’ 94-80 overtime loss to No. 16 Oklahoma was rather simple.
“We ran into a team that actually wanted to win more,” Staley said following the first SEC loss for the No. 2 Gamecocks (19-1, 5-1) on Jan. 22. “They made winning plays, we didn’t. It’s not really rocket science, it’s really a simplistic thing.”
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Staley’s team had the ball after a timeout with 18 seconds left in regulation and the game tied at 75 when Raven Johnson wound the clock down, got a double screen then dished to Joyce Edwards, who lost the ball as time expired.
Freshman Aaliyah Chavez then scored 15 of her 26 points in overtime to pull off the upset for the Sooners (15-4, 3-3).
How South Carolina lost to Oklahoma
South Carolina went on a 10-0 run midway through the second quarter to go up 43-36 at halftime.
Oklahoma started the third quarter on a 8-0 run and never gave the momentum back until the last five minutes of regulation. The Gamecocks trailed 71-65 with 4:17 to play in regulation when a Tessa Johnson layup stopped a scoring drought.
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An 8-0 run put South Carolina ahead 75-73 and almost was enough to secure the win when Sahara Williams missed a layup with 20 seconds left, but Raegan Beers caught the ball surrounded by three South Carolina players and scored the game-tying putback layup.
Beers had 18 points and 14 rebounds, including six on the offensive end. South Carolina allowed 19 offensive rebounds and 12 second-chance points. Oklahoma finished with a 54-39 rebounding advantage and had 15 fast break points, scoring 12 points off 13 South Carolina turnovers.
“We didn’t do enough to win,” Staley said. “When you do that in our league, especially on the road, you pay for it, you pay for it with defeat.”
The Gamecocks left 30 points on the board with missed layups alone, finishing 16-of-31.
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Beers checked into the fourth quarter at the 6:39 mark with four fouls and a minute later, Edwards missed a hook shot that Beers couldn’t contest.
Adhel Tac caught the rebound but missed the layup despite no defense from Beers. She caught it again and kicked it to Ta’Niya Latson, who drove back into Beers off-balanced instead of actually initiating contact.
Latson got it back and missed again. Beers never picked up her fifth foul.
“Just struggle,” Staley said of what she saw from Latson. “Didn’t really get good looks at the basket, didn’t really get out in transition a whole lot. I think we have to do a better job at getting her in positions where she can really score, make plays.”
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Latson was 1-of-10 from the field with four of her six points from the free throw line.
“It wasn’t there tonight I thought she forced it a little bit but sometimes you do that when you’re used to scoring points,” Staley said. “We have to do a better job at putting her in a better position to score and feel good about it.”
Edwards tied for her second-worst scoring night of the season with 12 points. Raven and Tessa Johnson combined for 35 but Madina Okot had just six.
South Carolina now returns home to host No. 4 Vanderbilt (20-0, 6-0), one of two undefeated teams in Division I, on Jan. 25 (3 p.m. ET, ESPN).
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“It’s not familiar territory for us,” said Staley, whose team has lost four regular season SEC games in the last six years. “We’ll live, it’s part of it. Our goals are still in front of us, every single one of them. We’ll live, we’ll learn.”
Lulu Kesin covers South Carolina athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email her at LKesin@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X@Lulukesin and Bluesky@bylulukesin.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Dawn Staley explains South Carolina’s upset loss vs Oklahoma
