On Saturday night, No. 6 LSU was on the brink of taking down No. 3 South Carolina for the first time since January 2012. The Tigers have authored three 30-win seasons since, most notably winning their first national championship in 2023.
They are among the sport’s elite under head coach Kim Mulkey.
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But her LSU teams have yet to beat Dawn Staley’s South Carolina, a program that’s become a beacon of consistency at the highest level.
So when Flau’jae Johnson was at the free-throw line with less than a minute left and a chance to finally put the Tigers ahead in a second half that saw them pull within one point six times, the more than 13,000 fans inside Pete Maravich Assembly Center could feel a monumental win coming.
Instead, Staley made history.
Johnson, who stacked seven points and four offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter, missed both of her attempts at the charity stripe, and, after a clutch Madina Okot basket, South Carolina iced the game at the line, leaving Baton Rouge with a 79-72 victory, Staley’s 500th win as Gamecocks head coach.
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South Carolina (25-2, 11-1 SEC) has now won 18 straight games against LSU (22-4, 8-4), a streak that dates back 14 years.
The Gamecocks were paced by Tessa Johnson’s 21 points. The junior guard made four of her five 3-point attempts and clocked out as the first South Carolina player to post back-to-back 20-point games versus AP top-10 opponents since now-Indiana Fever center Aliyah Boston accomplished that feat during the 2019-20 campaign.
Of Johnson’s 21 points, though, 16 came in the first half. The Tigers did everything they could down the stretch to keep the ball away from her.
Raven Johnson, on the other hand, had the rock when it mattered most. After LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson failed to capitalize on her potential go-ahead free throw attempts, Raven drove and muscled a pass to Okot that set her up for the bank shot that helped seal the Gamecock’s victory, their sixth over a top-25 opponent this season. Raven paired six assists with her career-high 19 points. Okot turned in yet another double-double, this one resulting in 12 points and 17 rebounds.
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Flau’jae Johnson gave the Tigers a jolt in the fourth quarter. There was one sequence where she scored or assisted on seven of her team’s nine points, as LSU continued to flirt with reclaiming the lead.
The Tigers found themselves down by as many as eight points in the third quarter. An 11-4 run, boosted by a pair of jumpers from freshman Bella Hines, nearly dug them out of that hole completely.
Foul trouble was an issue for South Carolina in the fourth quarter. LSU was in the bonus with 5:48 to go, but Mulkey’s crew was just 14 of 23, or 60.9%, at the free-throw line Saturday.
The Tigers also struggled from beyond the arc, making a mere two of their 12 long-range attempts. Offensive rebounding, points off turnovers and inside scoring kept LSU alive.
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Johnson got a good look from 3 on a shot that would have tied the game with about 20 ticks on the clock. She was off, and the the Gamecocks’ win streak against LSU was still on.
