December 20, 2001

Teresa Geter and South Carolina might have produced their breakthrough game. The 23rd-ranked Lady Gamecocks (10-1) matched their best start in 13 years and held No. 16 North Carolina to its lowest point total this season in an 85-53 victory at the ACC-SEC Challenge on Thursday night.

Geter scored 21 points and had 15 rebounds to lead South Carolina to its second upset of a ranked Atlantic Coast Conference team this season. The Lady Gamecocks beat No. 9 Duke 87-81 in overtime Nov.25.

“I hope this opens some eyes,” South Carolina coach Susan Walvius said. “People could look at it as, ‘They beat Duke, maybe Duke was cold.’ Hopefully, this shows that we deserve to be there and we’re a really good basketball team.”

The Lady Gamecocks led by as many as 35 points at 84-49 on Tatyana Troina’s free throw with 1:06 to go.

The Tar Heels (9-2), meanwhile, could not find the basket and had their poorest shooting game of the season, going 22 of 78 for 28.2 percent. They were outrebounded 61-41 by South Carolina.

Nikki Teasley made five 3-pointers in the opening half, but was held scoreless the last 20 minutes. Starter Coretta Brown went 3 of 14 for 8 points, half her average.

Jocelyn Penn scored 20 for South Carolina, whichtook advantage of every Tar Heels mistake. Penn had three early baskets and Geter two to put their team up 13-4 as North Carolina went more than five minutes without a point.

When the Tar Heels got to 23-21 on Teasley’s 3-pointer, Penn had three more buckets in a 12-4 run.

Teasley had the last of her 3-pointers with 3.1 seconds left in the half to cut South Carolina’s edge to 42-37. But North Carolina missed nine shots during the Lady Gamecocks’ 11-0 run to start the second half.

Geter twice hit shots that restored South Carolina’s 16-point lead when the Tar Heels tried to get back into the game.

“She’s been trying to find herself within our system and we’ve been trying to find where we could utilize her a little bit better,” Walvius said of Geter, who transferred from Tennessee.

It was the Tar Heels’ biggest margin of defeat since losing 101-58 at Duke on Jan. 27, 2000.

“They got going and then they got gone,” North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell said.

Shaunzinski Gortman added had 15 points for the Lady Gamecocks. Teasley, who did not start after missing several practices this week with back pain, was the Tar Heels’ only bright spot early on. The rest of her teammates went 9-of-30 with Brown going 0-for-4 and Leah Metcalf 0-for-5.

Penn and Geter exploited the middle for South Carolina in the opening period. Penn hit six of her seven shots while Geter made five of seven, all from in close.

“I just came out and was comfortable,” Geter said. “In the past games, I’ve been thinking too much about what I needed to do. Tonight I just came out and did it.