COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Indiana guard Sydney Parrish said as soon as the NCAA tournament bracket was revealed and showed No. 1 seed South Carolina as a possible second-round matchup, her team felt hope.
Now that the Hoosiers are set to take on the Gamecocks on Sunday, in a rematch of their Sweet 16 game from a year ago, Parrish said, "Anything can happen."
South Carolina beat Indiana 79-75 in Albany, New York, last year, but the knowledge that the Hoosiers clawed back from a double-digit deficit and nearly pulled off the upset has stayed with them.
"It gives us a little bit of motivation," Parrish said Saturday during a news conference previewing the second-round game. "When we got the seeding, knowing our second game would be against South Carolina, it gave us a little bit of hope knowing that we did play them so closely last year.
"We're in a position where anything can happen. I think we have a 4% chance of winning and South Carolina has lost one game here in the last four years. But this is the moments we grew up wanting. We grow up watching March Madness, watching upsets, and we're put in a position where we have the potential to beat a team that also ended our season last year."
Parrish led Indiana with 21 points in last year's game. After South Carolina built a 22-point lead, Indiana cut it to two with 1:08 left. Raven Johnson answered with a 3-pointer to put the game out of reach and give South Carolina a win.
The Gamecocks ended up winning the national championship, and though they return the bulk of their roster, Parrish and Indiana forward Karoline Striplin pointed out they no longer have 6-foot-7 post presence Kamilla Cardoso.
"Without a 6-7 kid in there with Kamilla and Ashlyn Watkins being injured at the beginning of this year, that definitely helps us," Parrish said. "We are not as tall as they are. I think that we have the strength of maybe trying to play a little bit smarter than them and knowing when to pick and choose, when to double, when to help off certain people, when to push the ball, and try to play fast and when to try and tempo it down a little bit."
Striplin transferred to Indiana this season after playing the past three years at Tennessee. Last year, as a member of the Lady Vols, Striplin was there when Cardoso banked in her first-ever 3-pointer to give South Carolina a 74-73 win over Tennessee in the SEC tournament semifinals.
"I wouldn't say [it's] easier to guard their post players at all this year, but the height advantage definitely gives us a little bit more room to run some of our stuff that we normally do," Striplin said. "We're going to have to go in and understand the game plan and execute. I think that's going to help us against them."
Though Cardoso is gone, many of the same players who won the national title last year return, including Johnson, Bree Hall and Te-Hina Paopao, who played with Parrish at Oregon.
"We just had a film session just a few minutes ago, and the first thing we discussed was what happened last year," South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. "We'll be prepared for it. Hopefully they won't knock down as many 3s as they did in that fourth quarter to put us in a position where they fought back and we had to claw to get the win."
Coach Teri Moran said she believes her team has confidence going into Sunday. But more than the confidence, she hopes her team has "the belief that, when our assists are high and turnovers are low, we are rock solid defensively. I think we can play with anybody."