Indiana women’s basketball is not just facing a tough challenge in the Sweet 16.
The Hoosiers have as difficult a task as any in the sport.
No. 4 seed IU takes on No. 1 overall seed South Carolina on Friday in Albany, N.Y. at 5 p.m. ET on ESPN. The Gamecocks have lost just one game over the last two full calendar years, against Iowa in last year’s Final Four. They defeated No. 8 seed North Carolina by 47 points in the second round.
So the odds are against Indiana, both figuratively and literally. The Hoosiers are 15.5-point underdogs against the Gamecocks.
IU head coach Teri Moren didn’t shy away from the reality of her team’s situation.
“As I said to our kids, I think, yes, we’re the underdog, but I think everybody else except for South Carolina right now is the underdog because of their perfect record. I don’t know that anybody believes that South Carolina can be beat. You can certainly use that,” Moren said during Thursday’s press conference. “Our kids, they read. They know that we are not expected, perhaps, to win this game. But does it fuel them? I hope it does. I hope it motivates them.”
IU will have its hands full in so many ways on Friday. USC owns the second-best scoring offense in the country at 86.3 points per game, along with the 11th-best scoring defense at just 55.4 points per game allowed. Indiana has played only one better offensive team (Iowa) and one better defensive team (Fairfield) all season.
Gamecocks center Kamilla Cardoso is one of the top players at the position in the nation, and the senior will pose a difficult matchup for Mackenzie Holmes on both ends of the court. And USC holds its opponents to a 26.1 percentage from 3-point range, good for eighth in the country.
USC has three players averaging double-digit scoring, in Cardoso (13.9 ppg), freshman MiLaysia Fulwiley (12.2), and senior Te-Hina Paopao (11.2). And the team is deep — no player averages more than 28 minutes per game, and nine play 15 or more. By contrast, four of IU’s five starters average at least 28 minutes per game, and only six have played 15 minutes or more.
“We’re all competitors, we want to win the game as much as South Carolina. We know it’s going to be a tall task because they’re so terrific and so not just well-balanced but they really have 10 starters, the way I look at it, when we’re preparing for them,” Moren said. “I want our kids to enjoy this, as well. I want them to play with not just enjoyment but joy, and they realize it. These kids aren’t — they know how good South Carolina is.”
But IU isn’t cowering against the mighty Gamecocks.
The Hoosiers, as Moren said, are well aware of USC’s prowess. And they’ve had some trouble against tough opponents this season, with blowout losses earlier in the season against Stanford and Iowa. But they’re more focused on themselves and what they need to do than anything about South Carolina’s greatness.
“We really don’t feel any pressure at all. We know everybody expects South Carolina to win. They’re a great team, and obviously they’re undefeated. But it’s March Madness, so you kind of have to throw all those things out of the window and just focus on yourself and winning,” senior Chloe Moore-McNeil said. “They are a great team, but any and everybody is beatable in the NCAA Tournament.”
South Carolina’s one weakness is free-throw shooting. The Gamecocks, as a team, have shot 68.83 percent at the foul line this season. Of their nine main players, only three have free-throw percentages above 70. They do average just over 19 attempts per game, which ranks 57th in the nation.
So that could potentially be an area for IU to exploit in this matchup. If the Hoosiers can hang in and keep the game close, they could have an edge at the foul line — IU shoots 73.62 percent as a team on free throws.
But South Carolina will have the advantage in most facets of the game. IU’s margin for error, nearly across the board, will be slim on Monday. Moren knows her team has to be at its best.
“I think you have to string together stops, but I also think you have to score. Our offense feeds us defensively, so when we can put points on the board, that helps us on the defensive side with not just our intensity but I think the connectedness that you have to play with in order to guard a team like South Carolina that has so many threats on the outside,” Moren said. “I do think you’ve got to string together some stops, but you’ve certainly got to put points on the board, too, or it can get away from you really quick.”
Notes
- Indiana played South Carolina in November 2019 in the Paradise Jam in St. Thomas, and the Hoosiers won that game. Holmes was a freshman on that IU team.
- Paopao and IU senior guard Sydney Parrish were teammates at Oregon in 2020-21 as freshmen. Parrish transferred to the Hoosiers after their sophomore years in 2022, while Paopao joined the Gamecocks this season.
- Two South Carolina players rank in the top 20 in the country in blocks per game — Cardoso (2.55) and sophomore Ashlyn Watkins (2.44).
- USC sophomore Raven Johnson is seventh in the country with a 2.84 assist-to-turnover ratio. Moore-McNeil ranks 13th at 2.71. Johnson is only the third player IU’s faced this season with a better ratio than Moore-McNeil, joining Michigan State’s DeeDee Hagemann and Oklahoma’s Nevaeh Tot.
For complete coverage of IU women’s basketball, GO HERE.
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
- Find us on Facebook: thedailyhoosier
- You can follow us on Twitter: @daily_hoosier
- Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no cost to you.
