Oh, Carolina! Here we go again
— -- The South Carolina seniors had some time to take mental snapshots of their arena and soak in the feelings of affection that poured down on them from the crowd as their second-round NCAA tournament game concluded Sunday. Such are the benefits of a 29-point victory.
"You think of the memories you've had in this gym with these fans," South Carolina forward Aleighsa Welch said after beating Syracuse in her final game at Colonial Life Arena. "There's no place like home. The sweet part is knowing my journey isn't over."
Meanwhile on Monday, the North Carolina seniors couldn't bask in the happiness of winning their last game on their home court until the final buzzer sounded. Freshman Jamie Cherry's winning basket with 1 second left brought all in Carmichael Arena to their feet, and kept alive the Tar Heels' season.
"Everybody dreams of hitting a shot like that," Cherry said after an 86-84 victory over Ohio State. "I just wanted to move on to the Sweet 16, especially for our seniors. I love them, and I didn't want it to end right here for them."
However, the end must come for one of these teams Friday (ESPN/WatchESPN, 7 p.m. ET), as No. 1 seed South Carolina meets No. 4 North Carolina in the semifinals of the Greensboro Regional. It's a rematch of last year's Sweet 16 meeting, won by the Tar Heels, but that game was contested way out in California, on Stanford's home court.
This year's location is perfect for a showdown between the two Carolinas. Greensboro, North Carolina, is where the ACC's headquarters are located, and Greensboro Coliseum is an hour's drive from Carmichael in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It's roughly a three-hour drive from Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina.
The matchup on court in some ways will be like any other that these two teams play against any opponent. That's because by this point, both teams' identities are firmly established. Dawn Staley's South Carolina squad has abundant depth at every position and height inside, and often overwhelms foes with both. Sylvia Hatchell's North Carolina team is heavily guard-oriented with one very powerful post player, and the Tar Heels want to beat teams by winning the possessions battle.
"I'm sure they'll be fired up for us," Hatchell said. "They've got size, they've got shooters. They're just a really, really good team. It seems like about half their team came through camp here. We recruited some of those kids, and I know a lot of them really well.
"Dawn has done a fabulous job down there in rebuilding that program. They're leading the nation in attendance, and they'll have a lot of people in Greensboro. It would be really terrible if they have more people there than the Tar Heels did. So I need to do a shoutout to get all the Carolina folks in the arena for us."
Of course, that points out a perpetual tug-of-war over the term "Carolina," which both schools use in reference to themselves.
North vs. South
There are factors of geography and history that add intrigue to this matchup, even if those things are more big-picture oriented and not really part of a game-day scouting report.
As Hatchell alluded to, many of these players wearing (North) Carolina blue and (South) Carolina garnet and black have known each other a long time. There are two sets of high school teammates now on different sides. The Gamecocks' Welch and the Tar Heels' N'Dea Bryant are both from Goose Creek High in South Carolina. And the Gamecocks' Asia Dozier and the Tar Heels' Xylina McDaniel (who is out with an injury) played for Spring Valley High in Columbia.
The Carolinas region always has had quite a bit of girls' basketball talent, and a lot of it over the years has tended to stay relatively close to home. Look back at all three of the Tar Heels' Final Four teams (1994, 2006, 2007), and you'll see key players from both Carolinas.
Hatchell, who is from Gastonia, a mill town outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, has been coach of the Tar Heels since 1986. She always has recruited her region very well, and the Tar Heels are perennially a competitive program. Under Hatchell, they've won or shared four regular-season ACC titles and won the league tournament nine times. Highlighted by their 1994 national championship, the Tar Heels have made 26 NCAA tournament appearances in the event's 34-year history, with 22 of those coming during Hatchell's tenure.
