‘Underestimated’ Brea Beal shines defensively in USC’s Final Four win over Louisville
Whether you’ve been paying attention or not, Brea Beal’s mentality hasn’t changed.
Beal, the lock-down defender for South Carolina women’s basketball, can be overshadowed on the stat sheet by junior stars Aliyah Boston and Zia Cooke. But Beal has been quietly — and consistently — shutting down opponents’ most lethal offensive weapons throughout the Gamecocks’ campaign to the national championship game.
“It’s just a mentality to have every single game,” Beal said. “You can’t just turn it on and turn it off when you choose to. It’s something I’ve grown since I was a freshman.”
The 6-foot-1 junior kept Louisville guard Hailey Van Lith, standing at 5-foot-7, in check as top overall seed South Carolina won 72-59 over the fellow 1-seed Cardinals in the Final Four on Friday in Minneapolis’ Target Center.
The Gamecocks advanced to the national championship, and Beal’s defensive effort played a key role.
Van Lith had scored 20 or more points in all four of Louisville’s NCAA tournament wins before Friday, when she was limited to nine points on 4 of 11 shooting. Beal blocked both of Van Lith’s two first-quarter shots, as the Cardinals’ top scorer didn’t score for the first 18 minutes of Friday’s game.
“I think they did a really good job of making it hard for me to even get the ball,” Van Lith said. “They obviously clearly were not going to let me get touches. ... I needed to get going a little earlier and needed to be more aggressive, especially off of pick and roll. But they did a good job of executing their game plan with me.”
Beal grabbed three defensive rebounds, two blocks (both Van Lith shots) and two steals (both against Louisville leading scorer Emily Engstler).
“She knows what your best move is,” Staley said. “She knows what your counter is, and she just waits. She forces you into those situations, and you’ve got to go to your third option as an individual player.”
Offensively, Beal put up a season-high 12 points, tying her scoring output from the Gamecocks’ Elite Eight win over Creighton in the Greensboro Regional. Beal went 5 of 7 from the field, 2 of 2 from the free-throw line and added three assists.
When South Carolina was knotted up with Louisville at 24 points in the second quarter, it was Beal who scored back-to-back layups to give the Gamecocks a lead they would never relinquish.
“She’s seeing it a lot differently than she has in the past,” Staley said. “Sometimes when you get pigeonholed into being a defender, you just take on that role, then you don’t even look to score. You don’t even look to do anything else. But we got her comfortable.
“She helps us so much when she scores and when she shoots the ball. Hopefully, she’ll continue to do that for us.”
Even though Beal’s coaches and teammates know the impact she makes on the floor, Staley said she believes the junior guard is still underrated.
“Brea is an elite defender,” Staley said. “She’s so underestimated. She’s just unassuming. It’s almost like a personality. Her personality makes it easy for people to overlook her, except the people that know what she does every single day.”
This story was originally published April 2, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "‘Underestimated’ Brea Beal shines defensively in USC’s Final Four win over Louisville."
