BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — As South Carolina guard Te-Hina Paopao delivered a message to her teammates before its Elite Eight game against Duke: Play with more toughness.

In its last two NCAA tournament games against Indiana and Maryland, South Carolina struggled in the first half with poor shot selection but Paopao believes the Gamecocks also had a hard time setting the tone.

She says that must change for them to advance to the Final Four.

“I feel like we’ve had some problems with that this season — playing with toughness,” Paopao said Saturday. “We’ve got to start the game with toughness. I feel like when the (other) team punches first and plays with toughness first, we tend to not be able to play with toughness until later in the second half or when it’s too late.

“I feel like we’ve got to come out punching first, playing with toughness first, and asserting our dominance in the first few minutes of the game.”

When asked why she felt her team could not match the tone of its opponents in the last two games, Paopao said, “Sometimes we can be a little loose and not locked in from the beginning.

“I feel like as a leader, I’ve got to let my team know that I feel like the aura right now is not feeling like we’re locked, and we’re just too loose. We need to lock in because it’s win or go home, and I know that we definitely don’t want to go home. Elite Eight games are really hard. We experienced that last year, and I told my team that we’ve got to be better in knowing that it’s going to be a hard game tomorrow.”

The key, of course, is being physical without fouling. Indeed, as Paopao discussed what she and her teammates will expect to see out of Duke – “a dog fight” in preparation for the physicality, she also added, “hopefully the topic I’m not supposed to talk lets us play tomorrow.”

That would be the officials. South Carolina was called for 18 fouls against Maryland, its highest total in the last eight games. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said Saturday she wants the shot selection to improve against Duke, a team the Gamecocks beat earlier in the season. That means not rushing shots early in the shot clock, knocking down layups and being better at ball rotation – particularly when it comes to making sure there are players in the area to grab rebounds.

Indiana and Maryland both tried to pack the paint and played with an aggressiveness inside that caused issues throughout. Both teams held halftime leads against the reigning national champions. Maryland had a lead with 3 minutes left in the game Friday before South Carolina pulled away.

Afterward, Maryland coach Brenda Frese said she felt her team “gave a pretty good blueprint on how to beat South Carolina for the teams moving forward.”

South Carolina forward Chloe Kitts responded, saying, “I don’t know if I would say blueprint, because they lost. So did you do the blueprint, or did you not? Because if you did the blueprint, you would have won. People can just say what they want. I don’t really care that she said that. The game was close. But at the end of the day we won.”

South Carolina is trying to win back-to-back national championships for the first time in school history. The Gamecocks were heavily favored to repeat in 2023 but fell just short with a loss in the national semifinals.

Though guard Raven Johnson said her team felt pressure early in the season as the No. 1 team in the nation, she said there is not as much pressure now as the games get harder.

“I wouldn’t say it’s pressure,” Johnson said. “I would say it’s teams don’t care we’re South Carolina. Teams don’t care we won a national championship because that’s what they want. We’ve just got to play our basketball. We have enough to get to the Final Four, so we need to bring it on Sunday.”

Staley hopes the experience South Carolina has will give her team an edge against a Duke team that has not been to an Elite Eight since 2013.

“Hopefully we will be able to tap into some of that,” Staley said. “Not saying that we’re overly confident because we’re not. There is a space where you’ve been here before. So the nerves are put to the side, and you get to your habits a lot quicker hopefully than someone who hasn’t been here a whole lot.”