‘Women’s basketball won today:’ No. 1 South Carolina hoops it up in superb Charlotte event
The Ally Tipoff in Charlotte didn’t have Caitlin Clark this year. It didn’t get 44 points pouring in from the most famous player in women’s college basketball, as it did in its inaugural season.
What did it get? South Carolina, the No. 1 team in the country, winning its 40th game in a row. And, amazingly, a Spectrum Center crowd that was larger than the one last year, despite the fact that Clark has moved onto the WNBA.
Organizers said a year ago that last year’s Ally Tipoff crowd of 15,196 ranked as the highest attendance for any women’s college basketball game ever played in North Carolina.
This time 15,424 fans — most of them in garnet and black — cheered No. 1 South Carolina to a dominant 71-57 win over No. 9 N.C. State Sunday afternoon. That was the first game of the doubleheader. In the second one, Iowa whipped Virginia Tech, 71-52.
The games themselves weren’t that close. But the crowd was electric. And, in a larger sense, as South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said: “Women’s basketball won today.”
The Gamecocks were the headliner this time, having just completed a 38-0 season in 2023-24 that allowed Staley and her team to bring home their third national championship to Columbia in the past nine years.
The South Carolina-N.C. State game was actually a rematch of a Final Four semifinal in April. USC won that one by 19 points on its way to the national title and it wasn’t much different this time around. The Gamecocks were too big, too smart and too talented.
“They beat us really bad on the boards,” N.C. State coach Wes Moore said. “Got outrebounded by 15.”
Moore was particularly incensed that only one player on his team was credited with any offensive rebounds — Sanija Rivers, with one.
“To me, that’s unbelievable,” Moore said. “I mean, 40 minutes, you got five people out there and you got one offensive rebound. So give them credit, but we gotta be better.”
South Carolina, meanwhile, had 10 offensive boards and 40 overall, compared to N.C. State’s 25. And that was despite the Gamecocks were missing Chloe Kitts, the 6-2 forward who led USC in points (19) and rebounds (14) in its season-opening win over Michigan in Las Vegas last Monday. South Carolina announced shortly before gametime that Kitts would miss the contest due to an academic policy issue; Staley said afterward it would only be a one-game absence.
But it was no matter. Staley has a host of former five-star recruits to choose from on the deepest bench in women’s basketball, and South Carolina didn’t miss a beat. Particularly impressive was point guard Te-Hina Paopao, who scored a game-high 23 points and hit a big basket every time N.C. State threatened to make a run.
Meanwhile, the crowd loved it. The Gamecocks have the best fans in women’s basketball and have led the nation in attendance for 10 straight years. If you don’t count the COVID-limited season of 2020-21, South Carolina has drawn at least 10,000 fans to 126 regular-season home games dating back to 2015.
So a crowd of 15,424 wasn’t that huge of a deal for either team, really, even though it contributed to that terrific atmosphere. N.C. State has played in front of large crowds, too.
And that’s where we are with women’s basketball now. I remember covering Charlotte Sting games in the early 2000s, back when Staley was the starting point guard, and there might be 2,500 fans physically in the building. Now, if a Staley team draws 2,500 fans, there must be an ice storm outside.
“We’re very fortunate that no matter where we go, our fans are coming,” Staley said. “Like, they’re coming. And you know the fact that we are just right up the street (Charlotte is about two hours north of Columbia, depending on Interstate 77 traffic) and the fact that I spent many summers here (in Charlotte) — I really enjoyed the city. They’ve embraced me. I’ve embraced them. And to see my career come full circle, to be so close to Charlotte again: Never would I imagine.”
It’s imaginable now, though. And you know what else this reminds me?
Charlotte hosted the women’s Final Four once, way back in 1996, back when Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma were coaching royalty and Staley was in the middle of her playing career.
In other words, it’s been a long time. The sites for the women’s Final Four are locked in through 2031. But one day, our city needs to host that event again.
This story was originally published November 11, 2024 at 5:15 AM.
