See you in Phoenix: South Carolina WBB pulls away from TCU, reaches Final Four
South Carolina women’s basketball is going back to the Final Four.
Dawn Staley and the No. 1 Gamecocks punched their ticket to Phoenix with a 78-52 win over No. 3 seed TCU in the Sacramento Regional 4 Elite Eight game on Monday.
South Carolina (35-3) will now turn its attention to playing in its sixth straight Final Four. The Gamecocks will face No. 1 overall seed and defending champion UConn (38-0) in a rematch of last year’s national title game.
USC’s Final Four game will tip off Friday at 7 p.m. on ESPN in Phoenix.
Fourth quarter makes the difference
South Carolina cruised through its first three NCAA Tournament games with relative ease. The Gamecocks won games against No. 16 seed Southern, No. 9 seed Southern Cal and No. 4 seed Oklahoma by an average of 45 points. South Carolina scored 90-plus in all three games and 100-plus points in the first two.
The Gamecocks’ Elite Eight game at Golden 1 Center on Monday was much closer — until the final quarter of the game, that is.
TCU started the game on top and led for most of the first quarter. South Carolina’s first lead of the game didn’t come until there were six seconds left in the period. The Horned Frogs regained the lead for the first few minutes of the second period, but South Carolina regained the lead for good with seven minutes remaining until halftime. South Carolina led 35-27 going into the break.
Staley’s squad led by 10 in the third quarter, but TCU was within arm’s length for a majority of the period. South Carolina took a 49-41 lead into the fourth quarter after both teams scored 14 points in the third.
The Gamecocks dominated the glass and were ruthless on defense as they expanded their to 20 points, starting the fourth quarter on a 12-0 run, effectively ending the game despite there being under seven minutes left on the clock.
“We just came out the fourth quarter and we knew that before we got to the five-minute mark we wanted to be up by 20,” USC forward Joyce Edwards said. “Ta’Niya literally said that in the huddle: Before we got to the five-minute mark in the fourth quarter we will be up by 20. And that’s what we did. I feel like our defense got more intense. And defense turned into offense, and we were able to get some transition buckets. And it just went up from there.”
South Carolina outscored TCU 29-11 in the fourth quarter. Those 29 points were USC’s most in a quarter all night (the previous high was 19 in the second quarter).
“Coach always said the Elite Eight is going to be one of the hardest games in the tournament,” Edwards said. “But it just shows us our resilience, our determination, our togetherness, and I feel all that is going to help build moment into the Final Four.”
Game MVP: Joyce Edwards
Joyce Edwards, South Carolina’s star forward and a Camden High grad who averages nearly 20 points per game, woke up on offense after a quiet eight-point performance against Oklahoma in the Sweet 16 on Saturday.
Edwards scored a game-high 24 points vs. TCU, her third 20-point game of the NCAA Tournament, and added 12 rebounds for her ninth double-double of the season.
“I didn’t feel like my last game was necessarily bad,” Edwards said. “Obviously my point production was reduced. But I mean when you’ve got two, three people coming at you you ain’t supposed to be shooting the ball, especially with a team as great as this.”
It was single coverage. There really wasn’t multiple people coming at me. Whenever you get single coverage, Coach tells you to go score it, and so that’s what you do.
Edwards also impressed on defense with three blocks, one off her career high. All three of her blocks came during the first quarter.
Gamecocks get a timely boost from a freshman
Freshman guard Agot Makeer picked the perfect time to have the best game of her South Carolina career.
Makeer finished with a career-high 18 points in the game. She also added three assists, four rebounds and three steals to her stat line in 31 minutes off the bench (which tied starter Raven Johnson for the second-most of any Gamecock).
“I feel like my mindset changed,” Makeer said of her postseason efforts. “Starting in the SEC Tournament I just started approaching games differently. And I feel like it wasn’t just one-dimensional thinking. I just wanted to go and do whatever I can to get the team to win.”
So just in this tournament, I’ve just thought whatever I can do to get this team a win is what I need to do.
Her efforts were much needed on a night where starting guard Ta’Niya Latson struggled (three points on 1 of 5 shooting in 23 minutes) and fellow starter Tessa Johnson was scoreless until the fourth quarter.
Makeer was an eye-popping +34 in plus-minus Monday, the best of any South Carolina player by seven points (Edwards, +27).
She also chipped on defense against star TCU guard Olivia Miles, who was limited to 18 points on 6 of 20 shooting.
South Carolina WBB’s Final Four matchup
- Who: No. 1 South Carolina vs No. 1 UConn
- When: 7 p.m. Friday
- Where: Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix, Arizona
- TV: ESPN
- Next up: The winner of USC/UConn will play either No. 1 Texas or No. 1 UCLA in the national championship game Sunday (3:30 p.m., ABC)
This story was originally published March 30, 2026 at 11:07 PM with the headline "See you in Phoenix: South Carolina WBB pulls away from TCU, reaches Final Four."
