DULUTH, Ga. — Dawn Staley spoke of things she hadn’t seen all season in very brief remarks before sliding back to the locker room.
It wasn’t just that her South Carolina team lost, in a convincing fashion by a 68-58 score to Kentucky in Saturday’s SEC Tournament semifinals.
She was “more disappointed in how we played.”
The top-seeded Gamecocks, who may have lost a chance to be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament with the loss, didn’t execute their half-court offense with their typical efficiency and were lackluster from 3-point range and the free throw line.
The poise and balance they demonstrated to produce a 27-3 record and the school’s first SEC regular season championship — and the most wins for a South Carolina team in more than 30 years — dissipated amid the fervor of Kentucky’s tenacious approach.
For the first time, Staley’s team was rattled and lost, and it showed.
This is not a good segue heading into the NCAAs, especially during a signature season that has signalled the arrival of an upstart program led by an ambitious young head coach and that’s trying to elbow its way past more traditional names.
“This is the first time I’ve seen our team play this poorly all season,” a despondent Staley said. 
She said most of her starters struggled, and declined the suggestion that Kentucky’s defensive pressure was the culprit.
“It was all us making really uncharacteristic decisions with the basketball,” she said. “It came from everywhere.”
It’s not entirely accurate to say the pesky, high-energy Wildcats weren’t a factor. They clearly were, from the outset, racing out to a 12-2 lead that Staley admitted her team “couldn’t recover from.”
After dispatching regular season nemesis Florida in the quarterfinals, Kentucky shook off early foul trouble to Samarie Walker, hit clutch shots and forced early rash of turnovers against a normally careful South Carolina team.
The Gamecocks never got closer than nine after Kentucky went on another tear at the start of the second half. The Wildcats, embarrassed at home by South Carolina last month, were determined to stifle a comeback.
Tiffany Mitchell, the South Carolina guard and the SEC Player of the Year, symbolized the struggles, shooting only 4-for-12 and scoring just 11 points.
“We wanted it,” Kentucky forward DeNesha Stallworth said. “We knew that we couldn’t have them come close.”
With possibly two No. 1 seeds still up for grabs — UConn and Notre Dame are locks for being the top two seeds in the NCAAs — Staley wouldn’t speculate on where her team will wind up next Monday night.
“At this point I have no idea,” she said. “It’s hard for me to project that sitting here and not being able to accomplish one of the goals of winning the SEC tournament championship.
“It really is out of our control at this point. We had control of it if were to keep winning. At this point I can’t even elaborate on it.”
Tennessee has that chance for the moment, but may need some help, to grab a No. 1 seed after its riveting 86-77 win over Texas A & M in the other semifinal. The Lady Vols can make a good case if they defeat Kentucky, which beat them in Knoxville last month, in the finals on Sunday.
Louisville, likely to meet UConn in the American Athletic finals, appears to be the only other possible No. 1 seed, but would have to pull off a staggering upset.
