Can Indiana women's basketball pull NCAA upset of mighty South Carolina? It's happened before

ALBANY, N.Y. — The Indiana women's basketball team pulled off an unlikely upset over then-No. 5 South Carolina when the teams played in the 2019 Paradise Jam tournament in the Virgin Islands.

It was a rare regular season loss for a Gamecocks team that has only lost 10 games over the past five seasons.

At the mere mention of the event on Thursday — more than four years removed from the loss — South Carolina coach Dawn Staley rattled off stats from her team's only loss that year and mentioned having "vivid" memories of them scoring only six points in the fourth quarter.

"Yikes," Staley said. "It was a very physical basketball game. It was probably one of the games that -- we haven't lost very many of them, so I remember the ones that we've lost over the past couple of seasons."

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Staley looked back at the game as No. 1 seed South Carolina (34-0) prepares to face Indiana in the Sweet 16 on Friday night. The Gamecocks advanced through the first two rounds of this year's NCAA tournament with an average margin of victory of 49.5 points.

The No. 4 seed Hoosiers (26-5) are once again heavy underdogs after pulling up a fourth quarter comeback against Oklahoma last week, but Staley isn't treating them like one.

"It won't be a cake walk," Staley said. "I hope it is, favoring us, but I know in my heart of hearts, in my basketball knowledge and understanding of prepping for them, it's going to be a really hard game."

For Indiana, the 2019 upset win over South Carolina was a significant step forward for the program under coach Teri Moren. It was IU's first victory over a non-conference opponent ranked in the top five and just fourth ever win over a top five team.

The Hoosiers would go on to reach the Elite Eight the following season and bring home a Big Ten regular season title in 2022-23.

Indiana's win against South Carolina helped lay the groundwork for that success.

"We were over the moon excited to win that game," Mackenzie Holmes said, on Thursday. "It was the biggest win of my career, first signature win for the program...I think that whole tournament was a great learning experience for me. Aliyah Boston was a freshman, and it was in her hometown. It was a loud, exciting environment."

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Holmes is the only student-athlete who played in the game remaining on either roster. She had eight points and a team-high six rebounds coming off the bench for the Hoosiers. The then-true freshman was just five games into her collegiate career at the time.

With all the roster turnover, the film from the game won't be of much use from either coach, but they did highlight some ways the 2024 matchup will differ from the 2019 version.

"I think basketball from then until now is much better," Staley said. "Like in that short period of time, players are better. Like freshmen are better because they've seen women play at the top of their games, so they come in much better prepared for situations like this."

"They can be very similar in style of play, but they can be more efficient at what they're doing, and to me that's what Indiana is. They're more efficient with what they're doing, and it doesn't matter their age. Teri does a great job of coaching up her team on both sides of the basketball."

Moren won't be able to rely on what worked defensively that game, a point that also underscores how difficult it is to match up against South Carolina this season.

"They're completely different than they were in '19 when we played them," she said. "What she's done is they've always been a very, very good defensive team. What they've added is shooters. When we played them in '19, I felt like we played off -- really off the arc, tried to bottle up (Aliyah) Boston as well as we could."

"...But she's just added some shooters which has made them more difficult to guard because you really can't sit in the paint and try to clog it up."

Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Preview: Indiana women's basketball vs South Carolina NCAA March Madness