The scene was eerily familiar.
No. 25 Tennessee held a 3-point lead late in the third quarter, but has proven this season to be dubious with second-half leads. This was the case again Monday night. Untimely turnovers and poor shot selection in the fourth quarter ultimately doomed the Lady Vols in a 62-56 loss to No. 3 South Carolina Monday night at Thompson-Boling Arena before a crowd of 12,014.
Tennessee turned the ball over 19 times, with six coming in the fourth quarter, and shot 34 percent from the floor.
Once again, the Lady Vols struggled against the zone. Tennessee shot 21 percent from behind the arc and committed turnover after turnover trying to force the ball into the paint.
“When you play a team like South Carolina, your margin of error is very, very small,” Tennessee coach Holly Warlick said. “As we did some really, really great things, that (turnover) stat just (hurt us).
“We just couldn’t get over the hump.”
That’s been a problem all year for the Lady Vols (15-10, 6-6). Their six losses in conference play are the most in program history. In two of the losses, the Lady Vols held double-digit leads entering the fourth quarter.
South Carolina on the other hand has supplanted Tennessee as the premier team in the SEC. South Carolina secured at least a share of the SEC title with a victory Monday night.
A’Ja Wilson recovered from a slow shooting start to score a game-high 25 points for South Carolina (24-1, 12-0). Tiffany Mitchell chipped in 12, and sparked a run that allowed the Gamecocks to seize control in the fourth quarter.
Diamond DeShields came off the bench to score a team-high 21 points. Bashaara Graves was the only other Lady Vols to score in double figures, adding 13.
The Lady Vols never led in the fourth quarter against South Carolina, but they led at other points in the game. Tennessee led 12-8 after the first quarter and led by as much as six in the first half. The Lady Vols traded leads with South Carolina in the third quarter and led 35-32 with 3:37 left in the third after DeShields hit a pair of free throws.
After that, the game shifted in South Carolina’s favor.
Mitchell evened the score with a 3-point shot and gave South Carolina the lead the next possession with a layup. South Carolina went on 12-4 run and led 44-39 at the end of the third. Tennessee didn’t have an answer for that spurt.
“I think when you have seniors who have played a lot of basketball for us in a lot of tough environments, (close games) are familiar to them,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. “I think we play our best basketball in the fourth quarter when the game is on the line.
“Fortunately for us, We got players who have been in these type of situations and they execute at the end of games.”
The opposite could be said about the Lady Vols. After they cut South Carolina’s lead to 46-43 in the fourth, they didn’t score for four minutes. Tina Roy hit a pair of 3-pointers to extend South Carolina’s lead to 56-45, sealing the win for the Gamecocks.
“We have been in every single game,” Andraya Carter said. “Every time we have lost it has been a close game or we either had a huge lead and blew it, or we had a ridiculous amount of turnovers. It’s kind of like we beat ourselves in every game that we lost.”
