The Thanksgiving holiday was spoiled for the second ranked South Carolina women Thursday night in Las Vegas when Rori Harmon of Texas hit a bucket with less than a second left to lift the Longhorns to a 66-64 win in the title game of the Players Era Championship. Harmon, who set the all-time assist record for Texas earlier in the game, had been held to just two baskets before the game winner.
The Gamecocks had tied the game on a pair of free throws by Ta’Niya Latson with 15 seconds remaining. The Longhorns then put the ball in the hands of their star guard, and Harmon went to work against Tessa Johnson. Harmon made a move to her left and pulled up just shy of the baseline, and canned the ten-foot jumper with seven-tenths of a second left on the clock.
The Gamecocks called a pair of timeouts, and had the ball in the front court, but only had a tenth of a second left, which was not enough time to get off a shot.
The Longhorns led by four at halftime, but South Carolina, using an 11-0 run, took a 50-46 lead into the fourth as Joyce Edwards scored nine point in the quarter. Texas tied the game at 54 with 6:44 to play, and took the lead for good on a Madison Booker basket 21 seconds later.
The Longhorns led by six with 4:24 left, but the Gamecocks went on an 8-2 run holding Texas without a field goal on five straight attempts over 4:23 of game clock. As it turned out, they needed one more second of shut down defense to force overtime.
Edwards and Latson led the Gamecocks with 16 points each. Madina Okot recorded her sixth double-double of the season with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Jordan Lee led Texas with 19 points.
The Gamecocks fall to 7-1 and will next play at 23rd ranked Louisville in the SEC-ACC Challenge on December 4th.
Final Stats
