BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Is the book out on how to beat South Carolina in March?

Only time will tell, but Maryland head coach Brenda Frese certainly thinks so.

“I think we gave a pretty good blueprint on how to beat South Carolina, to be quite honest,” Frese said. “For the teams moving forward.”

In this case, the team moving forward is Duke, the last team standing between South Carolina and a fifth consecutive trip to the Final Four.

Everything in the tournament is game-to-game, a match-up isolated within those 40 minutes and just the specific battle on the floor.

But nearly every Gamecock agreed that the 71-67 win against Maryland — a game South Carolina trailed for most of the second half and needed a late surge to survive — had startling similarities to the second-round wobble against Indiana.

The last two games were the first time all season the Gamecocks have shot under 44 percent from the floor in back-to-back games, checking in at 43.6 against Indiana and 38.5 against Maryland. The total of 135 points across the two games was also the lowest back-to-back for any two games since the second round and Sweet 16 of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. And the last time before that?

Once again, the second round and Sweet 16 of the 2022 NCAA Tournament.

“I think doubling the posts,” Maryam Dauda on the key to Maryland’s defense. “I felt like they definitely watched the Indiana game, and that’s what Indiana was doing. We’ve got to go back to the drawing boards and figure out as post players how to pass out of the double.”

Paint packing is nothing new against South Carolina, of course. For as long as the Gamecocks have had a size advantage, opponents have tried to do the same thing. Clog the middle, make life difficult for the post players, dare South Carolina to shoot 3-pointers. Aliyah Boston saw double, triple and even quadruple teams during her senior year, and last season’s team faced a constant battle of trying to get the ball to Kamilla Cardoso in traffic.

And of course, there was the infamous Iowa game in 2023, where the Hawkeyes sagged off the perimeter to such an extreme degree it inspired a year-long revenge tour to shoot better from the outside.

“It’s nothing new,” Dawn Staley countered. “They did a good job executing their game plan and we did a poor job at shot selection.”

At this point, there are no illusions about what is coming. Duke is going to do what Indiana successfully pulled off for a half and Maryland did for 3.5 quarters. The personnel is different, and the Blue Devils might not be able to execute it the exact same way, but the game plan is coming.

Post doubles, contested catches and space on the perimeter. Now how can South Carolina adjust it with less than 48 hours to turn around from yesterday’s game?

“I feel like we’ve got to do a better job adjusting offensively for us as guards and the post players,” Te-Hina Paopao said. “They’ve got to see the double earlier and kick it out and re-post. We just have to do a better job as an overall team to be better on offense and adjust sooner.”

There were some signs of progression from Indiana to Maryland. Joyce Edwards only had one turnover against almost exclusively double-teams after five against the Hoosiers.

Even through a very choppily officiated game, South Carolina did get to the free throw line 21 times, five more than the Indiana game. MiLaysia Fulwiley — who only played nine minutes against Indiana — took much better advantage of the increased space on the perimeter to pick up a head of steam and drive to the basket.

All of that, plus the reality of how shooting percentages usually even out and the Gamecocks being overdue a good game from the floor, creates some optimism that the offense can get back to its best self on Sunday.

“We’ve just got to take better shots,” Staley said. “If you’re open in the first five seconds of a shot clock, you’re probably going to be open the last five seconds of the shot clock. So we just gotta take better rhythm shots.”

The Gamecocks know what’s coming. They just have to execute better.

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