South-Carolina
As Dawn Staley, South Carolina pursue perfection, what Geno Auriemma might say | Toppmeyer
Watch: Kamilla Cardoso discusses winning 3-pointer for South Carolina
Kamilla Cardoso discusses her buzzer-beating 3-pointer to lift South Carolina past Tennessee in the SEC Tournament.
Geno Auriemma once described the pursuit of perfection as an unwelcome passenger on a season’s journey – so much so that he welcomed a regular-season loss.
“Fifteen or 20 years ago, there was only one thought in my mind: We need to win every single game. … The last couple years, I’d go into every big game on ESPN going, ‘Man, I hope today’s the day we get our ass kicked,’” Auriemma, UConn’s women’s basketball coach, told reporters in 2018.
Auriemma’s insight came from a coach who’s achieved six undefeated seasons, but he’d developed this idea later in his career that experiencing a loss forces a team to regroup.
No women’s hoops program has finished as undefeated national champions since Auriemma’s Huskies in 2016.
Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks are trying to become the first SEC team to finish undefeated since the Tennessee Lady Vols went 39-0 en route to cementing their three-peat in 1998.
The Gamecocks (32-0) have been ranked No. 1 in the polls every week since Nov. 13.
After four months of carrying that crown, it’s starting to look heavy – despite what the Gamecocks may say.
“It’s no pressure,” Gamecocks guard Te-Hina Paopao said before the SEC Tournament.
Well, then, maybe the season’s grind is simply taking its toll.
The Gamecocks will enter the NCAA Tournament undefeated, but not invincible.
In the SEC Tournament, USC looked as vulnerable as it’s been at any point this season. The Gamecocks shot just 43% from the field in conference tournament victories against Tennessee and LSU.
They required the fortune of a buzzer-beating banked 3-pointer to beat the Lady Vols in the semifinals.
As Pat Summitt would say years after her only undefeated season, navigating a season without a loss requires a team to experience “some luck, stay healthy and get a break or two.”
South Carolina cashed in its good fortune against Tennessee.
The Lady Vols led by two points with 1.1 seconds remaining when they inexplicably decided not to defend South Carolina’s best player, Kamilla Cardoso, off a sideline inbounds pass.
Tennessee’s first mistake? Not guarding inbounds passer Raven Johnson, who enjoyed a clean path to trigger the pass.
Its second mistake? Leaving Cardoso alone at the free-throw line. No defender was within 8 feet of her.
Its final mistake? Letting a Gamecock get an open look at a 3. When only a 3 can beat you, defend the arc. Tennessee didn’t. Instead of remaining at the free-throw line, Cardoso drifted out a few more feet to catch the inbounds at the top of the arc.
Cardoso had attempted just one 3-pointer in her career. As an opponent, you don’t know if she can make that shot. You don’t know she can’t, either.
She could – and did.
To call Tennessee’s collapse a case of coaching and defensive malpractice would be an insult to those who commit malpractice.
Perfect record retained, amid an imperfect performance.
A day later, South Carolina led LSU by just a single point with fewer than five minutes remaining before digging in to protect the lead. Bree Hall made a couple of clutch baskets to provide breathing room.
Hall’s late-game 3-pointers also rallied the Gamecocks past LSU in Baton Rouge two months ago.
Hall ranks fifth on the team in scoring. That’s South Carolina’s super power. It’s a deep team that depends on no single player to beat an opponent.
South Carolina’s enviable depth of talent makes it a rightful favorite entering the Big Dance, but the Gamecocks were also the undefeated favorite entering last year’s tournament. They lost to Iowa in the semifinals.
Only four coaches have achieved an undefeated NCAA championship: Auriemma, Summitt, Kim Mulkey (Baylor) and Jody Conradt (Texas).
As I consider Cardoso’s semifinal buzzer-beater against Tennessee, I think the Gamecocks may have been better served had it rimmed out.
The pressure of going undefeated would’ve been gone. The Gamecocks still would’ve enjoyed a No. 1 NCAA seed. A loss could’ve helped recalibrate them and provided extra motivation for this stretch run.
South Carolina takes aim at becoming the NCAA’s 10th undefeated national champion. UConn accounts for six of those perfect seasons – and Auriemma’s experience tells him that perfection can be more of a hindrance than a helper in pursuit of a championship.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s SEC Columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
A digital subscription will allow you access to all of his coverage. Also, check out his podcast, SEC Football Unfiltered, or access exclusive columns via the SEC Unfiltered newsletter.
Did anyone want this? A slick remake of Star Fox 64, minus the “64.” The same rickety rail-shooter from nearly three decades ago, glossed up with gorgeous environments and uncanny photorealistic animals. A modern game peeks through the haze of this nostalgia. But it’s not altogether worth the $50 pricetag ($60 if you want a physical cartridge).
The Star Fox campaign begins with a cinematic dramatization of the original game’s opening text crawl — the scene of Fox McCloud’s father betrayed by an ally into the hands of the evil Dr. Andross. Three years later, Fox commands his dad’s mercenary band against Andross. Each successive mission briefing gets reworked from its original clipped dialogue into fully animated mini-movies.
James Mastromarino/Nintendo /
But the visuals are a mixed bag. Detailed as the planets and ships might be, fans objected to Fox’s unflattering appearance after the game’s trailer dropped. His original character designer, who wasn’t involved in the new game, admitted to preferring the Super Mario Galaxy Movie version of Fox to this remake’s. For my money, the lighting is more of a problem than the models. In nearly every scene, the cockpit illuminates Fox in a gross green glow.
This campaign doesn’t take long to complete — between an hour to two hours, depending on how often you die and reload. But to reach the game’s true ending, you’ll have to restart and hunt for secret paths, easily quadrupling the runtime. You can also play cooperatively on two systems if you’re in the same room, or you can split your Joy-Cons to have one player steer and the other use mouse controls to fire lasers (an example of Nintendo sacrificing ease for a new gimmick). I’d have loved this mode much more if you could have a second player aim with a joystick, as in Donkey Kong Bananza.
Battle Mode makes for a more entertaining multiplayer experience, but you can’t play it on the same system. I tried it through an online session Nintendo set up, diving and gunning my way through 4v4 matches that required us to capture points or collect energy from meteorites. If you’re hooked up to a webcam, you can use an augmented reality feature to puppet a character’s portrait in GameChat. The facetracking is pretty good: raise your eyebrows, and your character will raise their eyebrows back. Open your mouth to speak and they’ll do the same. If you’re playing as Slippy Toad and puff out your cheeks, you’ll see him inflate his chin.
But even with these charming flourishes, Star Fox remains awkward. It’s got the production values of a modern blockbuster, but the sensibility of a 1990s arcade game. The campaign feels particularly antiquated, even with its expanded script and cutscenes. Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected more. This story’s already been reheated three times since the 1990s, after all.
If you’ve got buddies to battle or a tolerance for odd co-op, go for it. Otherwise, you’re better off skipping this remake and saving up for an original game.
Copyright 2026 NPR
A three-star navy rear-admiral fired by Pete Hegseth last year in the defense secretary’s purge of senior US military officials has won the Democratic primary in a closely watched congressional race.
Nancy Lacore secured the party’s nomination for the US House of Representatives in South Carolina’s first congressional district on Tuesday after defeating Mac Deford, a US Coast Guard veteran, in a runoff.
Lacore’s focus will now turn to November, when she will lead an ambitious Democratic bid to flip the Republican seat in the US midterm elections.
The district is currently represented by the Republican Nancy Mace, who chose to forgo seeking re-election to focus on her failed challenge for South Carolina governor. Jenny Costa Honeycutt, a member of Charleston county council, secured the Republican nomination for the election on Tuesday.
Lacore was among dozens of officers fired during Hegseth’s ongoing elimination from senior military roles of those considered to have crossed the Trump administration, or who do not fit the US defense secretary’s vision for the makeup of the armed services.
She is backed by several veterans’ groups, and Emilys List, which supports Democratic pro-choice candidates running for office. She raised $500,000 in her first two weeks as a candidate, and more than $1.4m through late May, according to a New York Times analysis of federal campaign finance records.
She is also one of 12 House candidates backed by the Bench, a Democratic strategy group advising candidates in districts seen as harder to win, the outlet said.
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