In the South Carolina women’s basketball locker room after Friday’s stunning upset loss to Arkansas, the emotion was raw, the atmosphere “depressed,” as one Gamecock bluntly put it.
After four consecutive SEC tournament championships, a conference record, the Gamecocks had their tourney cut abruptly short by a hot-shooting, upstart Razorbacks squad that became the first 10-seed to advance to the tournament’s semifinals since 1993.
Dawn Staley’s message to the team after the defeat was simple.
“This loss doesn’t really define us. Gladly, this isn’t the end of our season. We got ourselves to the position to where we still have the opportunity to play in the NCAA tournament, and we gotta get ready for that and use this as motivation,” Staley said, according to junior guard Te’a Cooper.