Te-Hina Paopao gets emotional over last games as a South Carolina Gamecock: "It's gonna take a while for me to soak it all in"

Te-Hina Paopao is playing her fifth and final season with the South Carolina Gamecocks. After three seasons with the Oregon Ducks, the guard transferred for her senior year and won the national championship in 2024.

After the 2025 NCAA Tournament bracket announcement on Sunday, Paopao talked to the media, where she was asked about her last few home games at the Colonial Life Arena (CLA hereafter). The No. 1 seed Gamecocks are in Regional 2 Birmingham with Rounds 1 and 2 set to tip off at Columbia, South Carolina.

"It's going to take a while for me to soak it all in, for sure," she said. "I'm really emotional that it's going to be my last few games here at CLA. They opened me up with welcoming arms and they've been the best fans in the nation.

"I'm just really fortunate to have them and we just got to balance that and know that we got you know two more games to play in front of them. But at the same time, we got to take that first game and just be excited to play in front of our fans again."

Te-Hina Paopao is averaging 9.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists. She will bring crucial veteran experience as South Carolina attempts to defend its title.

Te-Hina Paopao comments on South Carolina's overall No. 1 seed snub

Despite their incredible run during the regular season, South Carolina lost the overall No. 1 seed to the UCLA Bruins. The two teams met once, with the Gamecocks losing 77-62.

The Bruins also had an impressive run, ranking No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll for 12 consecutive weeks. However, unlike the Gamecocks, who lost three games, UCLA only lost two, both times to USC.

When asked about this, Te-Hina Paopao said:

"I mean, we're just chilling for real. We're just really excited to get it going and unfortunately, we didn't get it but that's okay, We still got games to play so we're just excited to get it going on Friday and just take it from there.

When asked if her teammates will use it as a motivation, she said:

"Yeah, I mean, we can use it as motivation but at the same time we still got we're fortunate to have games left. So we're just really excited for that part and we're just going to take one game at a time."

South Carolina will begin its March Madness run on Friday against No. 16 Tennessee Tech.