AUSTIN, Texas — South Carolina women's basketball dropped a 66-62 game at Texas, its first SEC regular season loss since 2021. The Gamecocks trailed by 10 and battled back to tie the game going into the fourth quarter, but never took the lead and dropped to 22-2 (10-1 SEC) on the season with six regular season games remaining.
Here is what Te-Hina Paopao said in an off podium interview after the game. She used the word "punked" six times today, if that gives you any window into how she felt the game went today.
On the feeling after the loss:
"Obviously upset. We've just got to look forward. When we lost against UCLA we had a big run, so hopefully this will boost us up even more and we'll have a going forward mentality instead of looking back. We've got to learn from this loss today."
On the Texas size:
"Their height did a thing to us, and we weren't prepared for us. We've just got to do a better job of keep playing how we're playing but at the same time find the open person in the gap and just not go so deep."
On Texas blowing up the offense:
"They were blowing up our sets. I think we just have to do a better job of getting open and being patient. I thought we were a little nervous in the beginning, a little jittery. It took awhile for us to calm down, and when we calmed down it was a little too late for us to get back on the horse and get that W. We're just going to use that as a learning opportunity. She [Dawn Staley] views it as we got punked, and we don't like to get punked. We're just really excited for the next couple of games."
On a better third quarter to close the gap:
"Executing a little bit better, and coach got on us saying we got punked and she doesn't like when she says that we get punked. We just had to come out with toughness, which we should've started the game with, but we didn't. We just needed that pep talk and that's what happened, but unfortautely we came up short."
On how she views this loss in the big picture:
"It's just another learning opportunity for us. From UCLA we learned that we needed to be tough, and that's what we took with us to the next couple games and in that long stretch that we had. And now we're going to use this as a learning opportunity that we don't want to get punked no more. It's going to be scary for the next few teams, because I know we're going to come out not being punked."
On how to accomplish that:
"You've just got to start out the game how we started the third quarter. Sometimes we can get comfortable, get complacent, and I feel like that's what happened today. We just have to be better as a team, and I have to be better as a team as well."
