March Madness is here: NCAA women's tournament, Mercer gets South Carolina, UGA and Tech get top-5 seeds
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
Under normal circumstances – remember them? – some Mercer fans would get a chance to check out the women in the NCAA Tournament.
This time, though, the opponent that is barely more than three hours away and would normally host will join Mercer, figuratively, and go 800 miles to the heart of Texas.
That’s where 16th seeded Mercer will take on top-seeded South Carolina in a first-round game of the women’s NCAA Tournament, which will be held from start to finish in San Antonio.
The Bears and Gamecocks will play Sunday at 6 p.m. on ESPN.
Georgia, which lost to South Carolina in the SEC tournament finale, is a three seed in its 34th NCAA Tournament and takes on Drexel out of Philadelphia at noon Monday. It’s the Bulldogs’ best seed since 2007,
Georgia Tech is a fifth seed, getting an at-large bid with a 15-8 record and trip to the ACC semifinals. The Yellow Jackets’ third-place finish in the regular season was the best in program history, setting up their first tournament trip since 2014.
They get Stephen F. Austin, a solid mid-major from the Southland Conference, at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday on ESPNU.
The Bears and Gamecocks aren’t far apart, but there’s little history. They’ve played six times, South Carolina with a 6-2 lead, one loss coming as a forfeit in 1981 in a game that was an 82-54 on-court Gamecocks win.
The last meeting was in 2006, South Carolina winning 77-30. The Bears were close when they played in Macon in 1982, losing 56-50.
Head coach Dawn Staley is 499-182 in her career at Temple (2000-08) and South Carolina (2008-present). And while she and Susie Gardner have never gone against each other as head coaches
“Susie, you know, great soul, great soul, great coach,” Staley said in a press conference Monday night. “She texts me every now and then, so we do have some familiarity with each other off the floor.”
But Staley hasn’t seen the Bears this year.
South Carolina’s lone player from Georgia is Victaria Saxton, a junior from Model. She helped the Blue Devils to the AA finals in 2017-18, knocking off Putnam County (70-64) and Dodge County (79-63) in the state tournament.
Mercer hasn’t corralled the Bears’ record against No. 1 teams on the website or media guide (2019-20 was the last one posted, and it didn’t include rankings for opponents consistently in the yearly results).
Notre Dame was No. 3 when it came to Macon and rolled 128-42 on Dec. 30, 2011.
South Carolina, though, is by far the strongest program Mercer has faced since then, including Iowa, which was a second seed and had a final regular-season ranking of eighth when the Hawkeyes survived Mercer in the 2019 tournament.
The Gamecocks, former team of Washington County standout and current WNBA Dallas Wing guard Allisha Gray, had a competitive game this season against an unranked non-power 5 opponent, beating South Dakota 81-71 on Nov. 28, which they followed a day later with a 79-72 win over No. 20 Gonzaga.
They beat Temple 103-41. The losses are to top-10 N.C. State 54-46, 63-59 to Connecticut, 75-67 to Tennessee, and 65-57 to Texas A&M.
South Carolina’s last Southern Conference opponent was East Tennessee State, which fell 101-55 in Canada in late November of 2018. The Gamecocks are 48-5 against the conference.
The Gamecocks went 24-33 in Staley’s first three seasons, then 18-15. Until this year’s shortened season, South Carolina has won 25 games ever year since then except in 2018-19 when it went 23-10.
That was also the last time the Gamecocks lost to somebody who wasn’t ranked or in a major conference, when Drake pulled off a 90-85 upset two days after that East Tennessee State win.
Their last two season-ending losses since winning the 2016-17 national championship have been to No. 1s, Connecticut and Baylor.
South Carolina will be without guard Lele Grissett, a senior wing out for the tournament with a lower-leg injury suffered in the SEC championship game.
Mercer in NCAAs under Gardner
(With seeds)
2019: No. 4 Georgia 68, Mercer 63
2018: No. 2 Iowa 66, Mercer 61
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