The South Carolina Gamecocks continued their march through the SEC by defeating the Georgia Lady Bulldogs 65–43. It marked South Carolina’s 20th straight win over Georgia, but with a major showdown looming in the battle for the SEC regular-season title, Dawn Staley made it clear that playing the way they did on Sunday won’t be enough to win that one.

“I mean, you’re going to have to put more than 65 points on the scoreboard to beat Texas, I think,” Dawn Staley said in the postgame press conference. “I do think that. Defensively, we did some nice things. All the intangibles went our way. I thought we did a good job of changing our defense up and playing a little bit of zone. I thought we executed that extremely well. We’ve been working on that.”

She continued, “Rebounding was well. And I thought for the most part, we were locked in to how they were screening, the small-ball screening. So, I mean, we have to put it together. We’ve got to have a really solid game on both sides of the ball to beat Texas. It’s a big game for us. Everybody knows that. There are a lot of implications regarding the game that are near and far.”

Vic Schaefer’s Texas side remain the only team to hand South Carolina a loss this season, winning 66–64 at the inaugural Players Era Championship thanks to Rori Harmon’s clutch 10-foot floater. But Dawn Staley knows that if the same shooting woes show up against Texas as they did versus Georgia, it won’t be a two-point game this time.

Against the Georgia Lady Bulldogs, South Carolina shot just 38% from the field, making only 25 field goals. Their 3-point shooting was even worse, hitting just 12% from deep on 2 made threes. If performances like that persist, beating Texas will become a distant dream for Dawn Staley and co.

“We just were out of sync,” Staley said about the offense. “Just off offensively, and the field goal percentage shows it. It’s not to say that Georgia did not play good defense. It wasn’t that. But I thought it was more us, because it wasn’t our normal shooting motions. Everything was too fast with more than two or three people.”

Madina Okot posted 14 points on 55.6% shooting from the field along with 10 rebounds, while Joyce Edwards added 14 points on 45.5% shooting. But most of the team had a bad shooting night. Tessa Johnson went 1–9 from the field, Ta’Niya Latson shot 3–9, and the bench contributed to just 15 points.

When you average 91.2 a game, a 65-point outing isn’t going to cut it — and Dawn Staley knows that.

But there’s still hope for the Gamecocks. Fortunately for them, Texas just dropped its first game of the season to an LSU team that hadn’t been winning against ranked opponents…until this Sunday. LSU didn’t shoot well either, finishing at 39%, but made up for it with relentless rebounding and elite defense. If South Carolina wants the same outcome, that’s the blueprint for Dawn Staley to follow!

Moving on, injuries have been a recurring theme for South Carolina this season, and one player sat out again tonight. Staley provided an update on her status.

Dawn Staley gives an update on Alicia Tournebize

The Gamecocks lost Chloe Kitts and Ashlyn Watkins before the season even began and have dealt with injuries throughout, often playing with a limited rotation. But that wasn’t the case against Georgia, as Staley had nearly her full roster available. Ta’Niya Latson made her return from injury, but South Carolina was still without mid-year signee Alicia Tournebize. 

Tournebize landed in Columbia on New Year’s Day, fresh off South Carolina’s SEC-opening blowout of Alabama. She didn’t begin practicing right away, but she did make the trip to Gainesville for the Gamecocks’ SEC road opener. She practiced on Wednesday, traveled with the team to Arkansas, but remained sidelined.

Her absence against Georgia marked the third straight game she’s missed, which has understandably raised fan concern. Staley, however, said she wants Tournebize to get more practice reps before seeing the floor.

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“She’s been having to do orientations and all of that so she’s missed some practice time,” Staley said. “So we want to get her some more practice time. There’s only school, I mean classes, in front of her, which will be her normal. So she’ll get out there on Tuesday and Wednesday. Probably get a workout in on Monday as well, just to load her up a little bit more.”

There’s a strong chance we finally see Alicia Tournebize make her Gamecock debut against Texas, and Dawn Staley could certainly use her size and presence in the paint to help slow down the Longhorns offense.