Cardinal have to get going on time
A slow start against South Carolina would be tough to overcome
Stanford night have its best defensive team this century. South Carolina is coming off the most dominant defensive effort in recent NCAA Tournament history.
When No. 1 seeds Stanford (29-2) and South Carolina (26-4) square off in the Final Four today, it will come down to which offense can break through against suffocating defenses.
Led by Kiana Williams, Pac-12 co-defensive player of the year Anna Wilson and freshman Cameron Brink, whose 79 blocks are five shy of the program record, Stanford is second in the nation in field-goal percentage defense (32.9%). No team has shot 42% this season against the Cardinal for the first time since at least the 1999-2000 season.
On the other side, South Carolina held Texas to 34 points in its regional final, tied for the fewest points scored in any NCAA Tournament game from the Sweet 16 or later. Texas had a scoreless fourth quarter that marked the first zeropoint period in the tournament since quarters were implemented in 2016.
Led by consensus firstteam All-American Aliyah Boston, who is 15th in the nation in rebounding (11.5) and 17th in blocks (2.6), the Gamecocks have outrebounded every opponent this season and rank third in the country with a rebound margin of 14.8 (behind only Duke, which
played just four games, and Baylor).
The rebounding margin holds up even against top competition — during 13 games against ranked opponents, the Gamecocks still had 11.8 more rebounds a game.
“If our team isn’t going to be on the glass, we’ll be going home,” said Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer, who is seeking her third national title. “And they’re a great up-tempo team. We have to limit turnovers so they’re not running on you, and really get back in transition and take away easy baskets.”
It was defense that helped Stanford overcome a 12-point halftime deficit in its last game against Louisville, which the Cardinal won 78-63.
“We were getting pummeled,” VanDerveer said. “I think our team just decided that we were going to be throwing the punches instead of being the recipient. We got more aggressive, and it started, I think, with Anna’s defense. Kiana stepped up defensively, got steals. We didn’t allow them to get second shots. Ashten (Prechtel), Cam, Fran (Belibi) rebounded, and we took care of the ball. We had nine turnovers, and we had seven at halftime. They were more aggressive than we were, and when we turned that around, we got better.”
Brink, who is battling a leg injury, and Prechtel will need to contain Boston, who is averaging 17.7 points and 10.7 rebounds while shooting 54.4% in the postseason. Meanwhile, the Cardinal guards will have their hands full against allSEC guard Zia Cooke, the Hemisfair Region MOP who scored 33 points and shot 6 of 9 from 3-point range over her past two games, and point guard Destanni Henderson, who led the SEC in assists per game (5.1) while averaging 12 points.
“We can’t wait until the second half. We can’t dig ourselves a hole,” Cardinal junior guard Lexie Hull said. “We have to play the whole game just like we did the second half against Louisville.”
The Gamecocks are allowing just 48.5 points a game in the tournament, but face a different type of challenge today. While Stanford has its share of star power, including three first-team allPac-12 players, the Cardinal’s depth is what makes them so hard to guard.
Four different players have led Stanford in scoring in the four tournament games — Hull scored 21 against Louisville, Hannah Jump had 17 against Missouri State, Haley Jones scored 17 against Oklahoma State and Williams had 20 against Utah Valley. The team also put four players in double figures each game.
Stanford is shooting 50 for 107 (46.7%) from behind the arc in the NCAA Tournament, and will set the record for 3s in a single tournament with five more. Williams, a senior, set the program record for career 3-pointers in the first round and currently has 310.
“Hopefully we can shoot the ball well enough from 3 just to hold serve,” Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said. “If they can hold their average from 3 and be as efficient as they are from 2, it’s going to be a long night.”