The USC Upstate women’s basketball team has almost been walking step for step with the men’s program through a lot of changes this season. Both teams experienced a lot of turnover, but not for the same reason. Obviously, the men’s team had to endure a coaching transition on top of graduating some key pieces. Jason Williams is still here to guide the women’s program, but their heartbreaking 61-45 Big South semifinal loss to Radford and subsequent 78-60 home loss to the College of Charleston in the WNIT marked the end of the stellar Upstate careers of Trinity Johnson, Isabell West, and Dakota Reeves – a trio that was responsible for scoring 25 or more points per game on average.
Despite the losses, they retained Rebekah Gordon, AC Markham, Jeni Levine, and Gracie Barnes — all a part of what was still a solid foundation for the relative youth of the rest of the roster (which is another thing they had in common with the men).
The final two aspects in which the men and women matched one another’s struggles was in their overall results and their tournament matchup. Obviously, we know how the men competed but could never close out games, eventually leading to just a 6 win campaign. The ladies did not fare much better. They fell just shy of the double-digit win mark with 9 on the season, which was enough to earn them a bye to the Big South Conference quarterfinal as the 7 seed and (like their male counterparts) a date with a familiar foe up in Johnson City.
They would end up facing the 2nd-seeded Longwood Lancers – a team that Upstate had gone 2-0 against in the regular season in a pair of tightly-contested games with a 46-45 win at the Hodge Center back in January and a 62-60 overtime victory at Longwood not even a week ago.
In essence, the matchup seemed like the opposite of the challenge the men faced with Gardner-Webb – who they got beat handily by in all three faceoffs between them this year. Perhaps the women stood a chance of being able to make a return trip to the Big South semifinals. But, unfortunately, that never came to fruition.
This game went so badly for the Spartans that it merits maybe just a quick paragraph summary. USC Upstate started 0 for their first 18 from the floor. They were essentially shut out in the first quarter with Longwood, in spite of a slow start themselves, going on a 17-0 run to start the game. The Spartans scored just 2 points in the opening 10 minutes on a pair of Jeni Levine free throws, and did not break the lid off the hoop until Vera Soderblom put in a layup just ahead of the 2nd quarter media timeout.
All of that would have been more than enough summary for the game, but I would be remiss not to point out two more significant facts.
Longwood’s full-court press, which is known to give teams fits, was effective against the Spartans as it led to about ten 10-second violation turnovers. It also led to lots of mishandled and bad passes. In total, the Spartans turned the ball over an eye-popping 31 times, tying a single game Big South Conference Tournament record, which led to 24 points for the Lancers. They also dominated the boards, hauling in 44 total rebounds. Of their 16 offensive boards, Longwood put up 21 second chance points. Their defensive effort held USC Upstate to 24 percent from the deck for the game (11-46). In short, the Lancers absolutely dominated as they cruised to the 56-37 win and a date with the winner of Radford vs Gardner-Webb in the semifinals.
“They {Longwood} are traditionally known to run and press and cause turnovers”, said Upstate Head Coach Jason Williams. “Their ability to put pressure on the front court vs the back court changed the game up for them and took away our ability to make adjustments and get up the sideline and attack their 2 on 1 on the backside. We struggled to adjust, but Longwood also had 18 offensive rebounds. They were very physical and got to every 2nd, 3rd, and 4th opportunity on the glass. In the end, the key difference for us was our inability to get defensive rebounds and take care of the basketball.”
USC Upstate, who wraps up the season at 9-21 overall, was led by Big South Freshman of the Year Cassie Gallagher with 15 points, 6 rebounds, an assist, and a steal. She was solo in double figures as the next closest scorer was Jeni Levine with 7 points to go with 5 boards, 2 assists, and a pair of swipes.
With the 2024-2025 season now in the books, Upstate will say goodbye to their 2 senior leaders in Gordon and Markham, who Coach Williams says have left a solid foundation to build on for the freshmen and sophomores they mentored this season.
“This has been an interesting year with the ups and downs of how we have gone. But, our seniors did a phenomenal job of leading this group and laying a foundation for the future moving forward. I can’t say enough about them and their work ethic and how they are such great kids. I can’t say enough about their ability to inspire, motivate, teach, guide, and be great role models for that locker room and myself. Our ‘culture stuff’ is there. Our ability to compete consistently is there. Now we just have to enhance it and get better down the road. That is led by these 2 seniors and their ability to constantly be in peoples’ ears and be the compass, North Star, or barometer consistently so that we can do those ‘culture things’ more often than not for a full 40 minutes and not back down.”
