SEC women's basketball championship: Khadijah Sessions steps up to help South Carolina beat Tennessee

With Isabelle Harrison out for the season, I'm not sure that there was ever really much question about South Carolina winning the SEC championship game for their first-ever conference title.

Their depth simply figured to be too much and today it was Khadijah Sessions who stepped up, as described at SB Nation's South Carolina site Garnet and Black Attack.

Tiffany Mitchell validated her conference player-of-the-year award by scoring 17 in the contest. Another player who shined this afternoon was Khadijah Sessions. Sessions's inconsistent outside shooting has been one of the Gamecocks' weak points throughout the season, but the junior point guard came through today with 3-4 shooting from beyond the arc. Her offensive performance kept the Lady Vols honest on defense.

Despite Tennessee's loss, Chris Pendley of Rocky Top Talk described their chances for a #1 seed on Selection Monday.

What's next? Selection Monday is in a couple of weeks and Tennessee is in the discussion for the last #1 seed. Based on what we know so far, Tennessee will close with the #1 RPI, #1 SOS, and a 10-5 record against the RPI top 50. Five losses is a lot for a 1 seed--Maryland at 31-2 at least looks like a nicer number--so if Tennessee can overcome the losses and lack of individual title against a Maryland squad that won both the B1G regular season and tournament titles, that'll be a good sign. Carolyn Peck, at least, is all in for Tennessee as the fourth #1 seed.

Again, without Harrison in the Lady Vols' lineup, I'd probably lean toward Maryland as the fourth #1 seed -- they're a deep well-rounded team who has mowed through the Big Ten in their first year there. But we'll see what the committee thinks.