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Top-10 Road Test Thursday for No. 1 Gamecocks
Women's Basketball  . 

Top-10 Road Test Thursday for No. 1 Gamecocks

No. 1/1 South Carolina is back on the road in SEC action Thursday night, facing No. 9/9 LSU. The top-10 battle between the league’s top two teams on ESPN will feature College GameDay coverage from Pete Maravich Center at 7 p.m. ET ahead of tipoff at 8 p.m. ET.

The LSU Series
The Gamecocks are 18-22 all-time against LSU with a current 14-game win streak against the Tigers. Both teams have been ranked in three games in the last six seasons, all South Carolina wins.

Last season, the Gamecocks posted an 88-64 victory over eventual National Champion LSU on Feb. 12, 2023, in Columbia. Coming off the bench, Kamilla Cardoso was the team’s top scorer (18, her career SEC high) and rebounder (13) in just 21 minutes on the court. South Carolina came out with stifling defense early, posting a nine-point lead after the opening quarter, and never looked back.

 

By the Numbers
3 – The SEC’s three top field goal percentage shooters in league play are Gamecocks – Te-Hina Paopao, Bree Hall, Kamilla Cardoso.

+26.4 – The Gamecocks have out-scored their SEC opponents in the paint by 26.4 points per game.

35.0 – South Carolina’s bench scores 35.0 points per game, including 33.6 per SEC game and 33.0 per game against ranked teams.

Gamecock Notables

  • South Carolina’s four wins over ranked opponents are tied for second most in the nation and have come by an average of 20.8 points. The Gamecocks’ seven wins over NET top-50 teams lead the nation.

  • Higher field goal percentages mean fewer offensive rebounds available, but the Gamecocks are 11th in the nation in offensive rebounding rate at 40.0 percent. They turn their 13.6 offensive boards per game into 16.5 second-chance points per outing.

  • South Carolina leads the nation in both field goal percentage (.526) and field goal percentage defense (.294). It leads the nation in 3-point percentage (.441) and is fifth in 3-point percentage defense (258). In SEC action, they lead the league in all three categories – .547 FG%, .318 FG% defense, .514 3FG%.

  • No Gamecock plays more than 27.5 minutes per game, and eight average at last 15.0 minutes.

  • South Carolina’s 19.9 assists per game are fifth in the nation. Its 17.8 assists per SEC game lead the league.

  • National Player of the Year candidate Kamilla Cardoso is 15th in the nation with 10 double-doubles this season, including five in the last six games. Against ranked opponents, she averages 13.8 points and 11.0 rebounds with 62.9 percent shooting to go with 3.0 blocks per game.

  • Lieberman Award Top 10 selection Te-Hina Paopao is the nation’s top 3-point percentage shooter (.558). The Gamecocks’ second-leading scorer (12.5 ppg) on the season is their top scorer against ranked opponents (14.3 ppg). Her 4.0 assists per game are ninth in the SEC, and her 2.4 assist-to-turnover ratio is fifth.

  • Sophomore Raven Johnson is fifth in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio with an SEC-best mark of 3.4. She is enjoying the best shooting of her career en route to 9.3 points per game, which is more than double her average of last season.

Ranked Readings
Against ranked teams, South Carolina is 110-67 (.621) in the Dawn Staley era (beginning 2008-09), and even that mark is skewed by the early seasons of her tenure. Since the start of the 2014-15 campaign, the Gamecocks are 95-28 (.772) against ranked teams.

This season, South Carolina is 4-0 vs. ranked teams, and those four are the second  most by any team this season as are the Gamecocks’ three top-15 victories.

 

Bench Mob
The quality of South Carolina’s depth ranks among the best in the nation. The Gamecocks’ six-woman bench is fourth in the nation with an SEC-best 35.0 points per game. The South Carolina bench has out-scored its opponents’ starters six times this season, and the Gamecocks’ top scorer in a game has been off the bench five times.

Paint Production
South Carolina has long dominated the paint, and this season’s numbers have not fallen off from that tradition, despite all the attention to its 3-point shooting. The season kicked off with 70 of the team’s 100 points against #10/10 Notre Dame (Nov. 6) coming in the paint, and seven other games have included at least half the total points coming in the paint.

The Gamecocks are out-scoring opponents in the paint 49.5 to 21.8 (+27.8) for the season and by +26.4 points per game in SEC action (50.0-23.6). They are shooting 60.1 percent in the paint compared to opponents’ 34.2 percent accuracy inside. The Gamecocks have scored 54.6 percent of their points in the paint.

Last season, South Carolina averaged 43.8 points in the paint to account for 54.6 percent of its offense.

Three for All
Long the Achilles heel for the Gamecocks, outside shooting has become a steady weapon for this season’s team. The Gamecocks lead the nation in accuracy, hitting 44.1 percent from 3-point range behind the nation’s top percentage shooter in Te-Hina Paopao (.558). Bree Hall is close behind at 48.5 percent. In SEC action, those numbers rise to 51.4 percent for the team, with the two guards tied at 63.2 percent, all three of which lead the league.

South Carolina’s 3-point volume has gone up as well, ranking third in the SEC with 7.2 made threes per game, including four games of double-digit made 3s. While the program record for made 3s per game is 9.2 set in 1993-94, the Staley era high is 5.8 in 2018-19.

Paopao’s 2.7 made threes per game are second in the SEC, and she has hit at least two threes in all but one game this season with four games of four made threes.

Hall’s 1.9 per game are seventh in the SEC, and that number rises to 2.4 makes per game in SEC action, which ranks fourth in the league.

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