No. 1 SC on 'mission,' rumbles into final at 37-0

CLEVELAND — There would be no early trip home from this Final Four for South Carolina. Kamilla Cardoso made sure of that.

Despite playing with a sore knee in the second half, Cardoso dominated inside. She scored 22 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, and the Gamecocks used a third-quarter blitz to beat NC State 78-59 on Friday night and clinch their spot in the national championship game. South Carolina (37-0) is the first team since UConn in 2016 to take an undefeated record into the women’s title game.

Last season, South Carolina entered the Final Four as a heavy favorite, undefeated and on a quest to win its second straight championship. But the Gamecocks lost to Iowa in the semifinals, a heartbreaking defeat that returning South Carolina players have not forgotten. Before Friday night’s game, they repeatedly said they never want to have that feeling again and would never overlook another opponent.

They repeated that in the locker room postgame.

“I feel so happy,” said guard Raven Johnson, who finished with 13 points. “Going from last year, we didn’t make it to this level. I feel like it’s unfinished business. We’ve got one more game, and we can’t let down right now because we didn’t come this far just to come this far. So we have a mission. We came here for one reason, to get a national championship.”

It was clear nothing would deny the Gamecocks this time, not even an injury scare to Cardoso. After Cardoso scored 12 of the team’s first 14 points in the second quarter, she appeared to get her ankle tangled up with River Baldwin and landed on her right knee with 1:39 to go before halftime.

Cardoso went to the locker room immediately, and South Carolina took a 32-31 lead into the break. The message from the players in the locker room was simple — no let ups. They refused to let NC State lead again. Cardoso, meanwhile, was determined to return after trainers examined her knee and said she could go back in.

“I was hurting,” Cardoso said. “I wanted to be out there. I’ve seen the doctor, he said everything’s fine. He’s just got to do some treatment, ice it and stuff like that and I’ll be ready for Sunday.”

Cardoso’s teammates were not surprised to see her come back out on the floor. Johnson referred to Cardoso’s nickname, “Killa Milla,” when she said, “That’s her mentality. She’s hurt, she played through it. She wants to win, so she’s going to do whatever it takes to win.”

South Carolina got more than just an inside presence from Cardoso when the second half began. The shots that were not falling in the first half started going in, one after another.

The Gamecocks opened the quarter on a 16-5 run, and NC State seemed powerless to stop it. The Wolfpack were disjointed and out of sorts. As Aziaha James described it: “They punched us in the mouth in the third quarter.”

When Tessa Johnson hit a 3-pointer to make it 51-36, coach Dawn Staley turned to her bench and shouted, “Yeah!”

Then another 3 fell, this one from Te-Hina Paopao, as Johnson led a dance celebration on the bench. By the time Bree Hall hit a 3 to end the third quarter, South Carolina had outscored NC State 29-6 to take control. The Gamecocks made five of their nine 3-point attempts in the quarter after making only two in the first half.

“Coach told us that was a six-point quarter for them. We were just like shocked because it didn’t feel like that,” Paopao said. “It felt like we were just out there being locked in on offense and defense. And we just played the game we know how to play.”

The Wolfpack’s six points in the third were tied for the second fewest in any quarter in a women’s Final Four game since quarters were introduced rather than halves in 2016. Saniya Rivers, who transferred to NC State from South Carolina, could never get going for the Wolfpack, struggling all night with her shot and finishing 2-of-11 for five points.

Baldwin, who felt hopeful about her matchup with Cardoso leading into the game, struggled to do much of anything and went 5-of-12 for 12 points.

NC State had no interior presence, and that became a huge advantage for South Carolina. Cardoso made 10 of 12 shots from the field. In addition to Cardoso’s presence, Ashlyn Watkins grabbed a career-high 20 rebounds, making her the fifth player in Final Four history to pull the feat and the first to do so off the bench.

When the South Carolina inside-outside game is working the way it did Friday night, Cardoso said the Gamecocks are “very unstoppable.”

“When all of us are on, nobody can stop us because we can get the post-ups, we can shoot the 3, we can drive,” she said. “So when all of us are playing in the same rhythm, nobody can stop us.”

Staley described it as playing to their strong suits.

“Kamilla is a strength of ours,” Staley said. “She’s 6-foot-7. She’s agile. She can command the paint. She plays with a desire to win. It’s a, ‘I don’t want to lose, I don’t want our season to end in any way, except the way I envisioned, and that’s winning the national championship.’ And when you can put your play behind your vision, it makes a beautiful memory.”

As the final minute ticked away, the South Carolina contingent stood and waved their towels and pom poms, anticipating the moment. The celebration on the South Carolina bench was muted. The players would be the first to tell you: The job is not done.

“We lost the Final Four last year and we do not want to experience that again, and we are very determined to win it all and do something coach has never accomplished before — having an undefeated season all the way to the national championship and winning that as well,” Hall said. “It feels great, but I’m ready to play right now.”