'We got whupped': How South Carolina will respond to UCLA loss, reload next season
South Carolina 'got whupped' by UCLA in the national championship game, Raven Johnson said. But the future remains bright for Dawn Staley's Gamecocks.
PHOENIX — While wearing her South Carolina uniform for the final time on Sunday in the bowels of the Mortgage Matchup Center, senior point guard Raven Johnson had a simple message for the younger Gamecocks: Remember this. Use this. “I hope they felt how we got whupped.
We didn’t get beat, we got whupped,” Johnson said after South Carolina was routed by UCLA in the national championship game . “And I hope it hurts them. I hope they have a big summer and get in the gym and work on their game, because it’s not going to be easy next year either.
” Whatever South Carolina needed on Sunday to beat UCLA, the Gamecocks just didn’t have it. The Bruins had Lauren Betts dominating in the paint , Gabriela Jaquez fighting for every loose ball and stuffing the stat sheet, and Gianna Kneepkens swishing a few timely 3-pointers. South Carolina didn’t have an answer for anything UCLA was throwing at it.
UCLA won its first national championship in women’s basketball in the NCAA era, defeating the Gamecocks 79-51 in front of a sold-out crowd Sunday, April 5 at the Mortgage Matchup Center. It's the second consecutive season that Dawn Staley’s South Carolina team has lost by 25 or more points in the title game. “We came out flat.
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