South-Carolina
South Carolina gets another top-10 win, finds more 'reliable' offense
Dawn Staley doesn’t quite have a vision.
But if she did, it might go something like Thursday’s first 20 minutes.
South Carolina women’s basketball beat Duke 81-70 in a top-10 match-up at Colonial Life Arena, another box checked on a gauntlet of a non-conference schedule. Really, it was a disservice to the first half that the second even required any heavy lifting. The Gamecocks belted the Blue Devils in probably their best 20 minutes of the season, taking a 51-31 lead into the locker room and looking ready to run Duke (8-2) out of the building.
Of course, it did not stick all night. But for two quarters, South Carolina (8-1) looked like the fully operational machine that tore through all 38 challengers last season.
“I don’t know what I envisioned, because sometimes we don’t know what we’re getting,” Staley said.
This was not the first big run of the year. Strictly in terms of numbers, it did not line up with the 32 straight points against Iowa State or the dizzying quickness it flipped the Clemson game on its head. But for maybe the first time in the 2024-25 campaign, the offense looked simple. Fluid. Efficient. Not just relying on turnovers or transition to score, but grinding defenses into dust in the halfcourt with a handful of concepts it could rely on.
In fact, “reliable” was the theme of the game. The Gamecocks are less than a month away from conference play, and will be exactly one-third of the way through the regular season after Sunday’s trip to TCU.
Most of the first month of the season has been about figuring out just that, reliability. Who can be trusted, what lineups play well together, and what offense is still efficient other than throwing the ball to the now graduated 6-foot-7 center.
“I just want somebody that you know when you call their number, it’s not going to tilt too far to the right or left,” Staley said. “They’re going to stay kind of in the middle, and they’re predictable.”
Chloe Kitts was predictable in the best way possible. She tied her career-high with 21 points, and put the team on her back to claw out of a fourth quarter offensive slump. Her high/low action with Sania Feagin in particular was a source of constant easy looks, the first flickers this offense has seen of the post players looking connected and running offense through each other.
“Our posts did a really good job of flashing to the ball,” Staley said. “And we played through them a lot.”
Tessa Johnson and Maddy McDaniel were reliable again. Both guards came off the bench, put the ball on the deck and made a habit of forcing Duke’s defense into tough decisions. Johnson scored on two drives and drew a foul on a third in a short burst, and McDaniel continued her steady improvement with another clean, turnover free game. Really, it felt like everything was working for a half.
You shoot over 60 percent, have assists on over half of said made field goals, score 30 points in the paint and have nine different players score, and you might be forgiven for thinking it was a re–run of last year’s team.
“I thought we did a really good job in the first half of taking advantage of numbers when we had them,” Staley said. “And then reversing the ball when we didn’t have numbers, which increases our shooting percentage.
“I thought we did a good job of just going a little bit deeper into our offense.”
But of course, the 25-point lead did drop to eight, and Duke staggered the Gamecocks into territory of needing to put the game away rather than just cruising through the final frame. Two separate stretches of 3:39 and 4:12 without a field goal looked like a backwards step, or at least a return to some of the November misfires.
Call it an intermediate step, turning on the jets for a half against a top-10 opponent if not for a full 40 minutes.
If nothing else, that lion is still in the cage. South Carolina, at its best, is capable of cutting through even top caliber opponents. That did not look like a given on the flight home from UCLA two weeks ago.
“We know what we want,” Staley said. “Like, we really know when we look good and when we’re most efficient, we know what that looks like.”
Maybe not exactly identical, but it probably looks pretty close to what she saw for a half tonight.
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New details have emerged in an officer-involved shooting that left one dead and a deputy injured in Anderson County on Monday.
A deputy with the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) initiated a traffic stop outside of Townville, SC, on I-85 Northbound near Mile Marker 11 for a traffic violation, according to a release from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
The deputy requested back-up and spoke to 32-year-old Austin Derrell Robertson, of Pennsylvania, in his patrol vehicle. Once the other deputy arrived, Robertson got out of the vehicle and “a physical altercation involving him and the two deputies” occured, according to SLED.
SC deputy critically injured after shooting during traffic stop, suspect killed
While deputies attempted to tase Robertson, officials said he grabbed a firearm from his vehicle and shot one of the deputies.
Both deputies then shot back at Roberston, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
SLED said the deputy was airlifted to the hospital and remains there for treatment at this time.
The incident remains under investigation by SLED, as requested by the ACSO.
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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – Former South Carolina Lt. Gov. André Bauer has been nominated for a position in foreign diplomacy.
The White House on Tuesday listed Bauer as a nominee to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Belize, a Central American country bordering Guatemala.
It’s unclear when a confirmation hearing will take place. WIS has reached out to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee for more information.
Bauer was South Carolina’s lieutenant governor from 2003-2011, serving under then-Gov. Mark Sanford. Before that, he served terms in the South Carolina House of Representatives and the South Carolina Senate.
More recently, Bauer entered the race for U.S. Senate in July 2025, looking to unseat Sen. Lindsey Graham in the Republican primary. He ended his campaign the following month.
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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — Six Republican candidates vying to become South Carolina’s next governor met in downtown Charleston for a wide-ranging debate that put abortion, infrastructure and the future of data centers at the center of the race.
The forum was held at the Sottile Theatre, where Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, Lowcountry businessman Rom Reddy and Attorney General Alan Wilson took the stage.
Questions included whether they would support a state hate crime law, how they would address concerns about growth and infrastructure, how to navigate collaboration, abortion and the future of data centers in the state.
One issue that drew near-unanimous opposition was state Senate Bill 1095, a proposed total abortion ban that passed out of committee earlier in the day. All of the candidates opposed the bill, but they differed on what they would do if it reached the governor’s desk.
READ MORE | South Carolina governor candidates tout infrastructure, growth at business forum
Norman said he would sign it.
“You know, this is an emotional issue, but I will tell you if this bill came to my desk as governor. If it passed the House and the Senate, I would sign it,” Norman said.
All of the other candidates on stage said they would veto the bill if it came across their desk as governor, with Reddy arguing the question should be decided by voters.
“The Supreme Court did not say the loudest voice in the ruling class prevails. It said it’s up to the people in the state, so let’s put it to a referendum,” Reddy said.
On infrastructure, candidates discussed reforming the South Carolina Department of Transportation and allowing private-sector involvement to help pay for improvements.
Wilson outlined ideas that included leasing interstate easements and expanding private express lanes.
“We privatized that grass between the interstates. We turn it into private express lanes that can be told we leased the easements on the sides of interstates to telecommunication companies and energy companies, and charge them for natural gas line and fiber optic fiber optic cables,” Wilson said.
Evette also pointed to public-private partnerships and the possibility of fast-pass lanes.
READ MORE | South Carolina governor candidates tout infrastructure, growth at business forum
“We want to make sure that we’re innovative public private partnerships coming in and creating fast pass lanes to allow people that are in a hurry to be able to utilize that,” Evette said.
The final question focused on data centers, with candidates agreeing corporations should “pay their way.”
“They should pay for their water. They should pay for their infrastructure, any roads around it, and we should look at what Governor Ron DeSantis has done in Florida with the large data centers that are coming to Florida. That should be the model in South Carolina and everywhere,” Mace said.
Kimbrell said the state should set limits to protect natural resources and guard against higher power costs for residents.
“Put parameters around data centers to ensure that the water consumption does not impact places like the ACE Basin,” Kimbrell said. “Ensuring that the Public Service Commission makes absolutely sure nobody’s power rate goes up and we try to get behind the meter energy grids in place so they can be self-sufficient.”
Two more debates are planned ahead of the primaries on June 9.
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