South Carolina refuses to let up Hoosiers embrace underdog role

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- Raven Johnson recalls the stunned aftermath of South Carolina's lone defeat last season, which came in the semifinals at the women's Final Four in Dallas. The Gamecocks were the No. 1 overall seed and were favored to win the NCAA title for the second year in a row, but their dream season slipped away with a 77-73 loss to Iowa.

"I processed it, but it wasn't easy," said Johnson, then a reserve guard but now a starter for the 34-0 Gamecocks. "Just seeing the seniors cry ... that hit me hard. But I thought, 'Maybe this happened for a reason.'

"Maybe we needed that. It made us mentally and physically stronger and put fuel to the fire for this year. It helped us to understand, 'Don't let your foot off the gas for anyone. It doesn't matter if you're undefeated. It doesn't matter who you are. This is March Madness.'"

But No. 1 seed South Carolina's opponent in Friday's semifinal (5 p.m. ET, ESPN) at the Albany 1 Region knows just how the Gamecocks felt last year. The Indiana Hoosiers lost a heartbreaking game, too.

Like South Carolina, Indiana was a No. 1 seed in 2023, but it got upset by No. 9 seed Miami in the second round on the Hoosiers' home court.

Indiana guard Sydney Parrish was so despondent over that loss that she didn't watch another second of the NCAA tournament last year. Forward Mackenzie Holmes, the Hoosiers' top scorer and rebounder, said she was emotionally able to tune back in by the time of the women's Final Four, where she watched the Hoosiers' Big Ten rival, Iowa, knock off South Carolina.

Now, two rounds earlier in the tournament, the Hoosiers (26-5) will try to do the same thing. They used that bad memory of their second-round loss last year to help them get past a tough Oklahoma team in the second round this year, 75-68.

Indiana knows the odds are against them vs. the SEC regular-season and tournament champion Gamecocks, but there is also something freeing in that. The Hoosiers didn't live up to their NCAA seed last year, but this season they already have.

"Yes, we're the underdog, but I think everybody else except for South Carolina right now is the underdog because of their perfect record," Indiana coach Teri Moren said. "I don't know that anybody believes that South Carolina can be beat.

"You can certainly use that. 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. I do think there is an aspect of that that you can use it to your advantage. You're playing with house money. You have nothing to lose."

The Gamecocks went to the program's first Final Four in 2015 and won NCAA championships in 2017 and 2022. They've been the dominant team in the SEC for the past decade. It's been quite a while since coach Dawn Staley's squad has been an underdog.

That said, because South Carolina lost all five starters and a key reserve from last season, Johnson and the Gamecocks think people underestimated them last fall; they were No. 6 in the preseason Associated Press poll. After the first week of the season, though, they were already back at No. 1, where they have stayed.

South Carolina has dealt well with the pressure as front-runner. Yes, it took a buzzer-beating, banked-in 3-point shot from center Kamilla Cardoso to keep the Gamecocks from falling to Tennessee in the SEC tournament semifinals. But that's as close as South Carolina has come to stumbling. And the team followed that with a victory in the SEC championship game, followed by early-round NCAA blowout wins against Presbyterian and North Carolina.

"I just think we're playing our best basketball," Staley said. "I questioned it going into the SEC tournament and then during the SEC tournament. We weren't clicking on both sides of the basketball.

"We had a little time to practice between the SEC tournament championship and our first round. We just really honed in."