PHOENIX — South Carolina guard Ta’Niya Latson scanned through the noise until she found head coach Dawn Staley. Their eyes met. A quiet nod passed between them.
Everything that it took to get here lived inside that exchange.
Latson emphatically clapped several times, then pulled guard Raven Johnson into a hug that lingered a second longer than usual.
This was the moment she chose. Not the easy one. The right one.
South Carolina’s 62–48 national semifinal victory over previously unbeaten Connecticut at Mortgage Matchup Center on Friday secured the Gamecocks’ third straight reservation to the national championship game. But for Latson, it confirmed something deeper.
A year ago, she’d been packing up her Tallahassee apartment. Watching on television as South Carolina lost the national championship game by 23 points to UConn. Watching Johnson hurt. She felt it, too.
“Even though I wasn’t committed [to South Carolina] at the time, I was hurting for Raven,” Latson told reporters postgame. “That was my sister. Just to see her sad and cry on TV, I carried that hurt with me through the season. It made me play for her and play for my teammates and my coaches. It’s like a sisterhood. Everything that they feel, I feel.”
It followed her through the offseason, through questions, through doubt, through the kind of decision that doesn’t always make sense from the outside. She left Florida State after leading the nation in scoring and walked away from numbers, comfort and being the focal point.
She chose something bigger.
“This is why I came to South Carolina,” Latson said. “It was a personal sacrifice that I had to make. I mean, I know a lot of people don’t get that; they don’t understand my why. I did. This is my why. … I’m just extremely blessed — blessed to have the teammates that I have, the coaches I have. We got one more, so I’m excited.”
On Friday night, her why showed up everywhere.
It wasn’t just in her first double-double of the season (16 points, 11 rebounds) that helped South Carolina end UConn’s 54-game winning streak. It was also in the space between them as she proved she was more than a walking bucket.
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Latson had plenty of help as the Gamecocks’ balance, poise and blue-ribbon defense overwhelmed the Huskies, especially in the second half.
South Carolina outscored UConn, 38-22, after trailing 26-24 at the intermission. The Gamecocks started the second half with a 12-2 burst to grab control and a lead they never relinquished. They ended the game by scoring 16 of the final 20 points.
In an era of instant gratification and highlights, Latson did all the little things for the Gamecocks. She had six rebounds, two assists and one major steal that led to a fast-break basket as South Carolina outscored UConn 20-13 in the third quarter.
“I knew I had to impact the game in any way I could,” Latson said. “I wanted this win. Whether that was rebounding, scoring, assisting, I was going to do what I had to do. The balls were coming my way, so I had to grab ’em and snag ’em.”
Late in the fourth quarter, Latson showcased her determination when she outleaped UConn forward Sarah Strong for an offensive rebound to earn another possession for the Gamecocks. She stepped into passing lanes and made all 10 of her free throws.
In addition to Latson, freshman Agot Makeer scored 14 points, and junior Tessa Johnson had 10. Sophomore Joyce Edwards added 11 points and eight rebounds, setting a program record for single-season points with 760. That topped Katrina Anderson’s 754 from all the way back in 1977-78.
Senior transfer Madina Okot also grabbed nine rebounds to help South Carolina enjoy a whopping 47-32 advantage on the boards.
There was a joyful relief at knocking off UConn, but there wasn’t over-the-top celebration, either.
The Gamecocks’ postgame locker room was subdued. Edwards’ eyes were focused on the overhead television tuned to the Texas-UCLA game. Tessa Johnson hunkered down in one corner of the locker room, calmly answering questions with the efficiency of a tax auditor. If you didn’t know already, you wouldn’t have been able to tell whether South Carolina had advanced to a national championship game or had just played its fifth game of the season.
Standing in front of a white dry-erase board, Johnson shared what her conversation was with Latson following last year’s national championship loss.
“She was trying to make sure I was good,” Johnson told The IX Basketball. “I was a little upset. She was like, she’s got me. She told me when she [got] here that we’ll see them again. And I was like, ‘OK,’ and we’re here now. It’s like a full-circle moment.
“This was a team effort. Defense wins big games like this. You’re not going to always have … a good offensive game, but when you can defend at [the] highest level and depend on each other on the defensive stuff, get stops and rebounds, that carries a long way.”
This game was personal for the Gamecocks. It had a memory attached to it.
That was one reason why Staley at times pounded the scorer’s table, repeatedly emphasizing her points to the refs. Sometimes it would be with shouts. Other times, she’d stand next to a ref during the run of play, providing insight into how she’d call the game.
The ending was unfortunate as Staley and UConn head coach Geno Auriemma appeared to angrily exchange words with less than a second remaining. It appeared that Auriemma was annoyed with Staley for not shaking his hand pregame, according to eyewitnesses, even though the NCAA posted a photo of their pregame handshake on social media.
When asked, Staley was succinct.
“You can ask Geno the question,” Staley told reporters postgame. “He’s the one that initiated the conversation. I don’t want what happened there to dampen what we were able to accomplish today.”
Auriemma initially didn’t offer much else.
“I just said what I had to say,” Auriemma told reporters. “Nothing. Nothing.”
He later added, “There are a lot of things that happened in that game. Unless you’re on that sideline, you have no idea what’s happening on this sideline.
“No, I mean, for 41 years I’ve been coaching and, I don’t know, 25 Final Fours. The protocol is before the game you meet at halfcourt. Anybody see that before? Two coaches meet at halfcourt and they shake hands, correct? Ever see it? They announce it on the loudspeaker. I waited there for like three minutes. So it is what it is.”
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After sprinting to an 11-4 lead, the Huskies’ free-flowing, high-flying offense was grounded. The Gamecocks slowly squeezed the life out of UConn like a boa constrictor. After scoring 15 points in the first quarter, the Huskies scored 33 points the rest of the game and no more than 13 in any quarter.
South Carolina’s defense held UConn below 50 points for the first time since it beat the Huskies 64-49 in the 2022 national title game. UConn had its worst shooting night of the season, finishing 19-for-61 (31.1%) from the field. The Gamecocks forced Strong and senior guard Azzi Fudd into a combined 7-for-31 shooting performance. Strong ended with 12 points and 12 rebounds. Fudd scored 8 points in her final collegiate game.
The Gamecocks never allowed UConn’s dynamic duo to get comfortable.
“When [Strong] got to the paint without the ball, I was helping off my man,” Okot said. “I was guarding a post player, like a five, maybe. So when she got to the paint without the ball, I was helping, almost doubling her without the ball, and then when she got the ball, we wanted to be in the gaps when she start[ed] driving, obviously, and box her out.”
Strong, the consensus national player of the year, couldn’t overcome the timely contributions from South Carolina, including Makeer’s 9 second-half points. Makeer hit a top-of-the-key 3-pointer that swelled the Gamecocks’ lead to 51-44 with six minutes remaining.
But everything came back to Latson for South Carolina.
“You see players [and] they just have a different look,” Staley said. “When they have it, it gives you confidence to know that they’re ready. You know some players that you got question marks about whether they’re ready to meet the moment. I didn’t have any of that with Ta’Niya. Didn’t have any of that with Raven. Joyce, none of that.
“For Ta’Niya in particular, I think that Ta’Niya just made huge sacrifices, individual sacrifices. Wasn’t an All-American this year. I want her — if she’s not going to get the individual awards, I want her to be part of a national championship team.”
Latson’s choice is now one game away from being complete. Everything she stepped away from, everything she stepped toward: All of it led here. And as the buzzer sounded, as the arena filled with celebration, Latson’s eyes found Staley’s one more time. A nod. No words. Nothing left to explain.
“I was really confident in coming to South Carolina,” Latson said. “I still am. I wouldn’t change anything. I would 100% do it again. I mean, my role obviously changed, but I didn’t let that affect me. At the end of the day, I knew why I came here. It was to play in the national championship and win it.”
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