South Carolina Basketball: Thumbs up, thumbs down after Notre Dame win

. South Carolina Gamecocks. NOT ENOUGH MINUTES . Thumbs Down. South Carolina basketball coach Dawn Staley has a problem on her hands…she has too many excellent ball-dominant guards. Te-Hina Paopao had a great debut in which she did everything anyone could have hoped for: she shot well, she attacked the basket, she ran the offense, and she was a leader. Raven Johnson looked more confident and comfortable than any other time in her career, especially as a scorer. MiLaysia Fulwiley is just a special player who showed how much she can do for the team in her debut on Monday. This may sound like a cop-out, but this thumbs down is that there simply are not enough minutes for Staley to play all three guards as much as they deserve.

Thumbs Down. South Carolina was a little loose with the basketball at times on Monday. The team had 14 turnovers (which isn’t a terrible number), but every player other than Bree Hall had at least one giveaway, and that is something that needs to be cleaned up a little bit moving forward. In a blowout over a top-10 team, finding faults requires a little nitpicking, but the turnovers were a moderate issue on Monday. A good sign, though, is that 6 of the 14 turnovers belonged to players outside of the top-7 in the rotation.. . South Carolina Gamecocks. TOO MANY TURNOVERS

Thumbs Down. South Carolina basketball’s perimeter players (guards and wings) had some struggles defending the arc a bit. Notre Dame had some wide-open looks from 3-point land and had several free drives into the lane because of poor closeouts. To be clear, the Gamecocks did not perform poorly as perimeter defenders against the Irish; however, there is room for improvement, especially from the guards when they man up against dynamic guards like what they saw in Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo.. . South Carolina Gamecocks. PERIMETER DEFENSE

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