South Carolina beat Vanderbilt 84-63 to advance to the SEC Tournament semifinals. Here’s what stood out to me from the game.

– Welcome back, Tournament Tessa. Johnson didn’t stand out in the box score, but if you watched the game you saw her absolutely lock up Mikayla Blakes in the first half. She also drew the second foul on Blakes, which put her on the bench for South Carolina’s huge first-half run.

“She’s going to score. It’s our job to make it harder for her to score and try as best as we can to limit her production out there,” Johnson said. “We did our job.”

In an interview on the SEC Network on Thursday, Dawn Staley said they need Tournament Tessa against this postseason. I asked Johnson if she felt like Tournament Tessa was back today.

“She’s coming,” Johnson said.

– South Carolina had to make things interesting by disappearing in the third quarter. South Carolina dominated the other three quarters, but that was enough to make it interesting. 

“We were just flat,” Bree Hall said. “We were really flat, and we couldn’t get any stops.”

Hall candidly admitted she doesn’t know why they were so flat, saying, “I don’t know what the heck was going on.”

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It made for one of the stranger games you’ll ever see. South Carolina won by 21, led by 25 at halftime and around 20 for about two-thirds of the game, and held Vanderbilt scoreless for the final. Yet you come away frustrated by that approximately 10-minute stretch where Vanderbilt got back in the game. 

– Perhaps with an eye towards playing three games in three days, Staley expanded her rotation to give playing time to Maddy McDaniel (11 minutes) and Maryam Dauda (three minutes). 

McDaniel had a bit of a mixed performance, dribbling into trouble a couple of times, but dishing out an assist. After one time that she dribbled into a double-team but got bailed out by a foul, assistant coach Khadijah Session, a former point guard, sprinted out to midcourt at the time out to coach her up. McDaniel continued to play, and that sequence is indicative of McDaniel’s promise.

Dauda had two points and two rebounds in her brief playing time, which is solid production. But more importantly, she helped South Carolina hold serve (actually better than that, her plus/minus was four). 

Last season, South Carolina dominated the first half against Tennessee but had to go to Sakima Walker late. Walker committed a couple of turnovers and a foul, and the whole game changed. Tennessee came all the way back to set up Kamilla Cardoso’s three. I had flashbacks when Dauda checked in, but it turned out for no reason.