No Cardoso and many questions for Gamecocks: “This presence is missing”

LAS VEGAS – South Carolina's dominant, energetic, experienced, wondrous 3-point shooting, rebound-grabbing, 6-foot-7 easy offensive answer is gone.

Whenever the Gamecocks needed a bucket for three years, there was an answer. The get out of jail card for every failed offensive set, the answer to almost every question an opposing defense might ask.

Throw the ball Kamilla Cardosoand let them go to work.

Now? All bets are void. And it almost caused the Gamecocks to stumble over the first hurdle of their championship defense, needing all 40 minutes to finally defeat unranked Michigan with a 68-62 victory.

“I noticed that our senior players lack a little bit of experience.” Dawn Staley said. “It’s different roles for them.”

The mailroom is by no means devoid of talent. Chloe Kitts opened her junior season with one of the best games of her career, a 19-point, 14-rebound outburst that kept South Carolina in the game despite struggling early on both sides. Real newbie Joyce Edwards was immediately active on defense with her length, helping to stretch the field in transition at a point in the game when Michigan (0-1) clearly controlled the transition portion of the action.

But everything was work, even as Kitts and Edwards found their space. There was no easy offense, no counterattack against Michigan's thrilling zone defense and, most importantly, no one for opposing defenders to pounce on and take better shots from outside.

“There’s a really big difference,” Kitts said. “I have never played with anyone like Kamilla. It was really great to play with her; She was just a big part of our team. That presence is missing.”

And if it is missing, the error rate is drastically reduced. Sania Feagin had and will have better nights than Monday. The veteran forward suffered two fouls four minutes into the game and didn't see the court again until the third quarter.

At any point in the last three years, a break for Feagin would have been a cog in a larger machine and more than survivable coming off the bench.

Right now, a bad night means two points and zero rebounds for a starter.

The same goes for guard play. Nobody on this squad had better chemistry with Cardoso than Raven Johnsonher former AAU teammate and partner, who came off the bench for most of the 2022-23 season. She struggled to get into the flow of the game, not hitting a single shot from the floor and only managing three assists, zero for other guards.

If your point guard can't find another backcourt player to make a basket all night, it's a cop-out if he waits for 6'3 in the frontcourt. Without them, there will be a six-minute scoring loss in the fourth quarter.

“Kamilla was very dominant down there,” the guard said Tessa Johnson said. “If we were in trouble, honestly we could just throw it up and she would rebound or take a shot or get fouled. If she was out there it would give us some peace of mind. It actually felt a little different. But we don’t have them anymore, so we have to adapt to that.”

Luckily for Staley and her team, March is still a long way off. Monday was game one of a four-month process to get into the best shape possible to chase another championship.

In Colombia, no one is interested in peaking in November anyway.

But it could be paying the price for these struggles. Michigan started with five guards and only played with one player over 6 feet, but still managed to keep the rebounding battle at a stalemate, 52-52. Second-chance points, a value the Gamecocks have possessed like no other team in the country over the past two seasons, actually went to Michigan 21-17.

North Carolina State and its frontcourt-heavy team face a Final Four rematch on Sunday. Two weeks later, UCLA's own 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts will get their chance against something that will likely be a work in progress for South Carolina.

No, the 3-point shooting probably won't be as colorful as it was against the Wolverines. No team shoots 19.2 percent over the course of a season, and especially not one with so many talented shooters. Feagin will become more comfortable in her new role and Johnson will develop chemistry with the new post players. Real newbie Adhel Tac and Arkansas transfer Maryam Dauda Both expect to get more playing time after playing a total of nine minutes in the first game.

This team is in a problem-solving phase and has potential solutions

However, emphasis on the problem.

“I like that we were challenged,” Staley said. “I like the fact that we were challenged in certain areas.”

The size of the team shrank and so did its ability to survive a bad night.

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