Tessa Johnson is enjoying time with her boyfriend, Zachary Davis, as she prepares for South Carolina's March Madness run. Davis is a junior playing basketball with the Gamecocks men's team.
On Sunday, the sophomore guard posted a video on TikTok where she was lip-syncing the lyrics to the song Price Tag by Jessie J. Meanwhile, Davis was acting out some of the words in the song.
After a successful freshman season that ended with winning the 2024 NCAA championship, Tessa Johnson is back to help the Gamecocks defend their title. She averaged 8.5 points, 2.0 rebounds and1.5 assists while shooting 48.0%.
Johnson came off the bench for the entire regular season but made her impact at crucial moments. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley even praised the guard, along with MiLaysia Fulwiley, for being the best from the bench.
"I always tell our bench, 'You're the number one bench in the country. Only you have that number beside you,'" Staley said after the win over LSU in January."And they could go other places and start but I got to let them know what they mean to our team."
"We don't win without the contributions in the first half, of MiLaysia Fulwiley, we don't win. She had it going on, she was getting to the bucket, she was assisting and then you come back and Tessa hits the biggest shot of the game, to me. The baseline out of bounds, huge, when they were mounting a comeback."
Tessa Johnson's South Carolina loses out on the No. 1 overall seed
Despite a great showing during the regular season and winning the SEC Tournament championship, Tessa Johnson's South Carolina lost the overall No. 1 seed to the UCLA Bruins.
The Gamecocks had one of the toughest schedules among all teams, playing against 11 ranked opponents and losing to three. The Bruins faced eight ranked opponents and lost twice to the USC Trojans.
Coach Dawn Staley sounded off about the snub. In an interview with the media after the announcements, she said:
"Obviously it's disappointing. It really is. I'd like to get some feedback on how they came to that conclusion. Because we put together, manufactured a schedule that if done right, it should produce the overall No. 1 seed."
"But I will say this. We're gonna make adjustments to our schedule in the future if the standard is the standard. If that's the standard, then we can play any schedule and get a No. 1 seed."
Tessa Johnson and her team's 2025 March Madness campaign begins on Friday when they take on Tennessee Tech.
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