History didn't mean a thing Sunday at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock.
South Carolina used its depth, size and defense built over seven years by Coach Dawn Staley to score its biggest victory for what can now only be considered a burgeoning national power.
Tiffany Mitchell scored 17 points, Aleighsa Welch had 14 and South Carolina shut down Tennessee's offense in the second half of a 62-46 runaway in front of an announced crowd of 5,819 in Sunday's SEC Women's Tournament final.
South Carolina is now 5-47 all-time against the Lady Volunteers, who were going for their 18th SEC Tournament title. But this one handed Staley's rising program its first SEC Tournament title and virtually assured it of a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive season.
"We still feel every bit of seven years ago, six years ago, when we were just trying to jump start the program," Staley said. "These are the times in which we looked forward to. We envisioned sitting here today being SEC Tournament champions and it feels great."
Thirteen days after South Carolina outlasted Tennessee for a 71-66 victory in Columbia, S.C., the Gamecocks won again with an overwhelming defensive performance in the second half.
South Carolina (30-2) outscored Tennessee 8-0 to lead 29-26 at halftime, then held Tennessee (27-5) to 8-of-30 shooting in the second half. The 46 total points were a low for Tennessee in 94 SEC Tournament games.
Tennessee twice went more than five minutes without a basket in the second half, and the Volunteers made 2 of 14 from the floor over the final 11:33 after pulling within 41-38 on Jaime Nared's basket.
The Volunteers, who scored more points this season than any SEC team but Gamecocks, were held to 8 points over the final 11 minutes Sunday.
Jordan Reynolds scored 17 points, but Cierra Burdick, who had 20 in Saturday's semifinal victory over Kentucky, scored 6 on 3-of-9 shooting and Ariel Massengale was held scoreless on 0 for 6 shooting.
"We missed easy shots, we missed layups, we missed free throws," Tennessee Coach Holly Warlick said. "Our margin for error against South Carolina is very small. It has to be small. You've got to make shots that are around the basket and layups. And we didn't."
The final four minutes of the first half changed everything.
Tennessee shot 50 percent over the first 16 minutes, and the Volunteers led 26-21 with 3:59 to play when Burdick muscled her way inside to cap a stretch in which Tennessee outscored South Carolina 8-1. Staley called a timeout, and even though the pro-Tennessee crowd was as loud as it had been all week, South Carolina was able to change the game for good.
Welch, who also had eight rebounds en route to being named the tournament's MVP, scored twice, and then A'Ja Wilson scored two more times as South Carolina outscored Tennessee 8-0 to take a 29-26 halftime lead.
"It was kind of a momentum shift," Welch said. "Energy was up in the locker room. There was a lot of more talking and I think it fed off into the second half, as far as being able to keep the momentum when we came out."
South Carolina also got better play Sunday out of Mitchell, the two-time SEC Player of the Year who scored four points in Saturday's semifinal victory, a performance she called "one of the worst games I've had wearing a South Carolina jersey."
On Sunday, her three-pointer gave the Gamecocks a 15-12 lead. In the second half, she was fouled shooting a three and made all her free throws to go up 40-34 with 13:13 left. Her layup on a runout gave South Carolina a 55-41 lead with 2:48 left, its largest to that point.
"My teammates did a great job of encouraging me and trying to stay the course," Mitchell said. "Stop thinking so much and just play basketball."
South Carolina's bench didn't come close to the 46 points it contributed in Saturday's semifinal victory, but Staley still counted it as a key. Eight Gamecocks played 13 minutes or more and four scored 11 points or more.
"We were probably a lot fresher because we were able to use a lot of different people over the last three days," Staley said. "We just tried to make them work extremely hard for everything they got. Fortunately for us, our defense did the job tonight and won us a tournament championship."
Sports on 03/09/2015