Johnson, South Carolina look for redemption
CLEVELAND — Raven Johnson couldn’t stop herself. One viewing of South Carolina’s loss to Iowa in the Final Four last spring would lead to another. And another. And another.
The image of Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark waving Johnson off when the Gamecocks guard had the ball at the top of the key, as if to say “no threat,” became seared into Johnson’s mind. It hurt in ways that left Johnson wondering if she even wanted to do this anymore.
And still, she couldn’t hit pause. Or delete. “People were like, ‘Can you stop watching that game?’ ” Johnson said Saturday. “And I was like, ‘I can’t, I just can’t.’ ”
It wasn’t until senior Laeticia Amihere basically staged an intervention that Johnson found the strength to move on.
“I don’t even know how she got in my room,” Johnson said. “I thought I locked the door. But she got me closer to God . . . she’s really the one that really helped me get over that hump.”
A year later, Johnson believes she’s a different player.
One eager for a chance at redemption Sunday when the unbeaten Gamecocks face Clark and the Hawkeyes for the NCAA championship.
Looking back, Johnson doesn’t see all those viewings of the biggest loss of her still burgeoning career as some form of punishment. The sophomore has reframed those dark days. They weren’t torture, even if it might have felt like it at the time amid all the tears. She was growing, even if she wasn’t aware of it.
“I think I was learning from the game, learning what I could have done better, what the team could have done better,” Johnson said. “Looking at how they scouted us. Looking at how they played me. Looking at how they played my team.”
It didn’t matter that Johnson actually played well that night, scoring 13 points and making half of her six shots from behind the 3-point arc. She wasn’t a threat from the outside. Not consistently anyway, and she knew it.
A year later, things have changed. Johnson is 7 of 13 from 3 during the NCAA Tournament. She knocked down three of her five attempts from behind the arc in a blowout win over North Carolina State in the Final Four on Friday.
“She got in the gym, and she got better, and I admire that,” Clark said. “I think that’s what makes great players great. And that’s exactly what she did.”
Record TV audience
Iowa’s 71-69 victory over UConn on Friday night averaged 14.2 million viewers on ESPN, making it the most-viewed women’s basketball game on record, and the largest audience for an ESPN basketball broadcast. The previous women’s hoops mark was 12.3 million for last Monday’s Iowa-LSU game in the Elite Eight . . . South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said Saturday that she believes transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports. “If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, or vice versa, you should be able to play,” Staley said . . . Sarah Strong, the top-ranked recruit for the class of 2024, committed to UConn. The 6-foot-2-inch North Carolina native, who led Grace Christian High School to its third straight state title, was the Naismith Player of the Year.