Quinnipiac will look to continue its Cinderella run in the NCAA tournament when it takes on the number one seeded South Carolina Gamecocks.
The Gamecocks have become a perennial national title contender over the past couple of seasons and are looking to advance to the Elite 8 or farther after they lost to Syracuse in the Sweet 16 last year.
South Carolina is in its fifth Sweet 16 under head coach Dawn Staley. Staley has developed quite the pedigree, not only as a coach but also as a player. She won three Olympic gold medals as a player and this year she will be taking over as the head coach of the United States women’s national team from Geno Auriemma.
South Carolina’s roster is one of the most talented in the country. The star player for the Gamecocks is A’ja Wilson, who has won the past two SEC player of the year awards and has been named first team All-SEC in her first three seasons at South Carolina. Wilson is also up for the Naismith award for the second year in a row. The award is awarded to the best player in college basketball.
Quinnipiac will have its hands full with Wilson who is 6-feet 5-inches, so you can expect South Carolina to try to pound the ball down low as much as possible.
The Gamecocks will be without senior center Alaina Coates, who averages a double-double with 12.9 points per game and 10.7 rebounds per game.
Allisha Gray also picked up an injury. She got a hamstring injury in South Carolina’s round of 32 game against the Arizona State Sun Devils but she will be ready to play on Saturday afternoon.
South Carolina does not intend to overlook Quinnipiac because every team that is at this stage of the tournament has earned its way here.
“Very skilled team, very unselfish team. When you look at their stats, the thing that jumps off the page is the amount of assists to field goals. It is an incredible stat that jumps off the page,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said.
“With the team that we are playing, you can’t take them lightly at all. Obviously, they are here for a reason. They’ve earned every single bit of that. The number next to their name means nothing. They are just another team who has earned their way here. We have to come out and be ready to play,” South Carolina junior guard Kaela Davis added.
The Gamecocks will look to disrupt Quinnipiac as much as possible, as they look to frustrate Quinnipiac on the offensive side of the floor.
“We have to try to disrupt the pace at which they want to play and execute. We have to be committed for 40 minutes because if you don’t, they can very well win the game,” Staley said.
Although South Carolina has more experience with this stage of the NCAA tournament, Quinnipiac knows that it can rely on one another to pull off another upset.
“We are all in this together. Just because none of us have been in this experience before. I think we are all going to go through this together, the ups and the downs and just work our way through,” Quinnipiac forward Jen Fay said.
“The biggest thing is trust. Trust that (coaches) will give us the game plan and they trusting in us to execute that game plan,” Adily Martucci added.
Quinnipiac head coach Tricia Fabbri knows that her team is in for a tough test on Saturday afternoon.
“I don’t think there is enough time in this press conference to run through the challenges that we are going to see tomorrow from coach (Dawn) Staley and her team. You just start with the experience that they have with this tournament and this round, is first and foremost. The thing that is most impressive to the staff is how they defend. We have our hands full all day tomorrow,” Fabbri said.
Quinnipiac will need another strong out defensively if they want to upset the number one seeded South Carolina Gamecocks who has three players taller than 6 feet 2 inches.
“Definitely a lot of help defense, also boxing out since they are so much taller than us. We have to really concentrate on getting boards and pushing them out of the paint,” Quinnipiac guard Adily Martucci said.
Adily Martucci will have another tough task as she will most likely matchup against either Bianca Cuevas-Moore or Kaela Davis. Martucci is no stranger to tough matchups as she usually takes the opposing team’s best guard. Martucci has shutdown Natisha Hiedeman of Marquette and Adrienne Motley of Miami, so do not be surprised if either Cuevas-Moore or Davis have quite games.
Sarah Shewan will need to have a good game down low against A’ja Wilson because Shewan is one of the few players on Quinnipiac that is close in height to Wilson. Wilson is only two inches taller than Shewan who stands at 6-feet 3-inches tall. Shewan has come up big over the past couple of tournament games as she usually gets big offensive and defensive rebounds for the Bobcats.
Despite the importance of these individual matchups, Quinnipiac will need another great team defensive performance.
The Quinnipiac Bobcats received quite the surprise on Friday morning, when Geno Auriemma the head coach at the University of Connecticut wore a Quinnipiac t-shirt to his press conference.
The Bobcats were very grateful for the support that another Connecticut school was showing support to them.
“Geno (Auriemma) has been such a mentor for me. He helped me get the job at Quinnipiac. A gold standard, a great guy. He reached out as soon as we won. So complimentary of what we were able to accomplish over the weekend. The fact that he is wearing our shirt in support of our team in the tournament at this time. So thankful and very grateful for his support,” Fabbri said.
Quinnipiac will take on the top seeded South Carolina Gamecocks at 4 p.m. EST and the game will be shown on ESPN. This will be the first time in school history that the Quinnipiac women’s basketball team will be on ESPN.
The winner of this game will advance to the Elite 8 and play the winner of the number two seeded Oregon State Beavers and the three seeded Florida State Seminoles on Monday night.
