South Carolina won the battle on the glass by a significant margin. Throughout the game, Tennessee was unable to tighten up its rebounding against the Gamecocks.
“They’re a great rebounding team,” Harper said. “I think there were a few execution box-outs that we missed. We didn’t get as many O boards this time around.”
Going against a team like the Gamecocks, it is crucial to win the board game, but Tennessee failed to do so. South Carolina was more physical than Tennessee when it came to bringing down and fighting for offensive and defensive boards.
The Lady Vols had 41 rebounds to South Carolina’s 57. Jackson led Tennessee with eight rebounds, and Jewel Spear followed with seven.
“We had some missed executions,” Harper said. “We had some long rebounds we didn’t get to. We’ll go back and look at that. I think they’re so good on the boards. You’re not going to keep them to zero. That’s not going to happen. You’re probably not even going to keep them low, but you don’t want to have that disparity.”
Momentum built in fourth quarter
Tennessee began to climb in the last quarter. Although South Carolina won the first half and third quarter, the Lady Vols won the last quarter 20-17.
“I think for us, looking at the big picture, we have grown in so many ways,” Harper said. “No one has beat that team for a reason. They’re really good. We didn’t back down. I was proud of our team. I thought we competed. I think we’ve been trending upward. We’ve been playing some really good basketball, some tough basketball that should serve us well in tournament time.”
Jackson was a force for the Lady Vols in the last quarter. Jackson led the game with 29 points, 10 of which were in the fourth quarter.
“I thought she had a great mentality throughout the game,” Harper said. “I know that was not easy, but I thought she handled it really well. I thought she was very positive with her teammates. I thought she communicated well with them. I thought she played pretty tough. I think her teammates, you could see they had a lot of confidence in her throughout that game.”
Mental toughness will be carried onto postseason
Despite being out-played by the Gamecocks, the Lady Vols continued to fight until the last minute, even when the lead became out of reach.
“I feel like it says a lot about our team,” Jackson said. “I’m proud of how we were able to keep our minds in the game. Other teams probably would have just given up seeing that they were down by a large number, but I feel like we just continued to fight. I feel like I’m just proud of how we handed ourselves.”
Even when the Gamecocks went on scoring runs, Tennessee worked to stay in it. Tennessee refused to tap out of the game and make uncharacteristic errors, instead they worked together to find points in crucial moments and create challenges for South Carolina’s offense.
“I thought we stayed together,” Spear said. “We could have definitely folded when we were down by 11. But instead we came together and we talked about different things that we could have adjusted to on the court. So I thought we did a really good job of that, and we responded. I think we went down two or three points, so it just shows you how much we can do, especially on the road here at South Carolina.
