UCLA snaps South Carolina women’s 43-game winning streak

It has been a very long time for the reason that South Carolina ladies’s basketball crew has misplaced a sport.

Getting into Sunday’s sport in opposition to No. 5 UCLA it had been 43 video games to be actual, a streak that went all the best way again to the Closing 4 within the 2022-23 season after they misplaced to Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes within the nationwide semifinal. 

That profitable streak got here to an emphatic finish on Sunday in a 77-62 loss to UCLA, handing Daybreak Staley’s crew its first lack of the 2024-25 season. 

UCLA stormed out of the gate and carried a commanding 43-22 lead into halftime, and whereas South Carolina was in a position to shut the hole a bit of bit within the second half it was by no means in a position to actually get shut. 

UCLA’s Londynn James got here off the bench to attain a game-high 15 factors within the win, whereas 5 completely different Bruins gamers reached double-digits. That features Lauren Betts who completed the sport with a double-double, scoring 11 factors and gathering a game-high 14 rebounds.

James was additionally an ideal 5-on-5 on three-point photographs, whereas the remainder of the Bruins had been simply 5-for-16 from past the arc. 

UCLA is likely one of the finest groups within the nation has been in back-to-back Candy 16s, and it is a huge assertion win and resume builder early on this season to go together with an enormous season-opening win in opposition to then-No. 17 Louisville. 

As for South Carolina, as gorgeous because it is perhaps the Gamecocks had been going to lose sooner or later, particularly after a 43-game streak that additionally spanned all the 2023-24 season. After dropping within the Closing 4 in 2022-23, the Gamecocks responded by operating the desk a 12 months in the past on their solution to their third nationwide championship below Staley.

Getting into Sunday’s sport they had been 5-0 and had received three consecutive video games by not less than 30 factors.

UCLA was their first main check of the season, and it didn’t go properly.