{"id":245281,"date":"2026-03-31T16:39:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245281\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T16:39:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:39:40","slug":"raven-johnson-named-sacramento-4-regional-mop-as-south-carolina-reaches-final-four-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/245281\/","title":{"rendered":"Raven Johnson named Sacramento 4 Regional MOP as South Carolina reaches Final Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Raven Johnson has been a Final Four<\/a> mainstay during her five years at South Carolina and she’s seen it all.<\/p>\n

The Gamecocks’ leader has been part of two national championships for Dawn Staley in 2022 and 2024, although she missed most of the first one as she tore her ACL two games into the season.<\/p>\n

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Now, she has helped the Gamecocks reach their sixth consecutive national semifinals \u2014 and seventh in nine years \u2014 by earning the Most Outstanding Player of the Sacramento 4 Regional after a 78-52 win over TCU<\/a> in the Elite Eight on Monday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a core group, they\u2019ve all gone to the WNBA, which leaves Raven left to just play how she\u2019s playing this year,” Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said. \u201cScoring when we\u2019ve needed it, facilitating when it\u2019s needed. She did some things on the way in this journey of the NCAA Tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staley recalled earlier when sophomore Joyce Edwards was complaining about the rims in practice, Johnson went over to her and said \u201cwe only want positive thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been here, what, four, five \u2014 five times now. I think experience does matter,\u201d Johnson said after the Sweet 16 win over Oklahoma. \u201cAnd I think using my voice goes a long way. They listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The veteran coach said Johnson didn’t know she was listening and saw the entire exchange.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Raven) is a winner and now people are seeing the type of player she is and she was capable of being,\u201d Staley said.<\/p>\n

Johnson is one of the best defensive players in the country, constantly guarding the opponents best player. In the two games in Sacramento, she averaged 14 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.5 assists.<\/p>\n

\u201cRaven\u2019s been through a lot. She\u2019s standing strong today and she\u2019s performing at a high level, which we all know she was capable of playing at this level,” Staley said. \u201cBut she sacrificed a lot of her beginnings and actually some of her end of her South Carolina career by just being a giver, by just being a winner and making winning plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP March Madness bracket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ncaa-womens-bracket<\/a> and coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Raven Johnson has been a Final Four mainstay during her five years at South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[107808,34623,109789,109788,121,123,122,18891],"class_list":{"0":"post-245281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-dawn-staley","9":"tag-gamecocks","10":"tag-national-championships","11":"tag-raven-johnson","12":"tag-sacramento","13":"tag-sacramento-headlines","14":"tag-sacramento-news","15":"tag-south-carolina"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}