Alaina Coates, A'ja Wilson and Allisha Gray each score 17 points to lead the Gamecocks to a 83-59 win over the Cardinals. (0:36)

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- Almost in the shadow of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, No. 3 South Carolina and No. 4 Louisville played a game that was about entry into a select club.

South Carolina is already in, just as its coach is enshrined among select company in the building across the highway from the MassMutual Center. Louisville is not yet in the club. The Cardinals have championship aspirations -- but not yet championship expectations.

Connecticut, Notre Dame and South Carolina have those expectations.

And after South Carolina's 83-59 win Sunday, that is how it is going to stay for now.

"I think our players really enjoy, they focus in a little bit more, when the competition is a little stiffer," South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said of the high-profile matchup. "So it was great to see them come out and play this way and rise to the level of a competitive basketball team.

"We're still in search of who we want to be on both sides of the ball."

Possessing both the potential and personnel to be a lot of things on both sides of the ball, that ought to worry the rest of the country.

Sunday started as if two participants thought it was a Hall of Fame audition. South Carolina's Kaela Davis and Louisville's Asia Durr traded long jumpers as both teams shot better than 70 percent from the field for much of the first quarter. South Carolina has played that game before and won against a top-tier opponent. It opened the season by scoring 92 points in a win at Ohio State while shooting the Buckeyes out of their own arena. Even with A'ja Wilson limited by foul trouble that night, Davis and Allisha Gray took on all comers.

But that wasn't how South Carolina went about it Sunday. They didn't give Durr a chance to grow her legend in a duel.

At Ohio State, Davis outscored the nation's leading scorer. Against Louisville, the Gamecocks collectively silenced the rising star.

"We knew a lot goes through her," Staley said of Durr. "She's a big part of what they do and the flow of how they want to play. So it was really key to us to make her work for everything, maybe deny her some touches and kind of crowd her space a little bit."

Durr hit the fourth shot of her torrid start with just over five minutes remaining in the first quarter. That 3-pointer tied the score at 13. She hit her fifth field goal with just over one minute remaining in the third quarter. In the time between those baskets, South Carolina outscored Louisville 48-28.

In what remained of the first quarter and through the entirety of the second quarter, Durr took two shots and missed them both. Nor did she get to the free throw line. When South Carolina's Bianca Cuevas-Moore picked up early fouls, freshman Tyasha Harris came in and suffocated Durr.

"Making sure that they made her work really hard for it and put other people in positions to shoot the ball for them," Staley said of the plan. "And maybe they weren't ready to be the main focal point of their offense, because Durr has been that for the first couple of games of the season."

Asia Durr hit four field goals in the first five minutes of Sunday's game. Then South Carolina's defense stepped up, and the Louisville sophomore didn't hit her fifth field goal until just over one minute remained in the third quarter. AP Photo/Steven Senne

Mariya Moore tried with some success to hit those shots for Louisville. Briahanna Jackson hit a couple off the bench. In foul trouble, Myisha Hines-Allen couldn't help. But in a second quarter that separated the teams and a third quarter that settled matters, Louisville looked like a team without answers on the offensive end. Nothing came easy.

That it was Harris who was so instrumental is notable. A highly touted freshman from the same Indiana high school that sent Kelly Faris to Connecticut, Harris, in her fifth game, played the way complementary pieces must for championship contenders. She played South Carolina defense.

"The first thing I learned was drop-cross-run," said Gray, the transfer from North Carolina who spent last season practicing with South Carolina. "We don't slide anywhere. It's easy to guard your opponent when you run and sprint to the space to beat your opponent."

Staley said after the game that she wasn't satisfied with the defense, that there was too much gambling and not enough discipline. Tell that to Louisville coach Jeff Walz after his team shot 38 percent with 17 turnovers.

"I just thought the pace of the game, I thought we controlled that," Staley said. "I thought Louisville wanted to play a little bit quicker from the games that I've seen this year. They wanted to get up and down a little bit more. There were a lot of fouls in the game, so a lot of stoppage of play, which I think benefits us, because we can be more calculating offensively in what we're trying to do. And that's to get the ball inside to our bigs."

Ah yes, those bigs. The day didn't go perfectly for South Carolina, either. In a game with a lot of the aforementioned whistles, both Davis and Gray ended up on the bench in foul trouble for stretches of the pivotal second quarter. But while the Gamecocks collectively stifled their opponents on the defensive end, Wilson and Alaina Coates combined to outscore the Cardinals 10-9 on their own in the period.

"She's a big part of what they do and the flow of how they want to play. So it was really key to us to make her work for everything, maybe deny her some touches and kind of crowd her space a little bit." Dawn Staley on South Carolina's defense on Asia Durr

In a disappointingly empty arena, it wasn't difficult to make out Walz's instructions to his team as the game wore on. So much of it was centered around Wilson and Coates. About blocking them out every time the ball went up. About watching out for the high-low sets when Wilson would feed the ball to Coates on the block. About running the offense that limited their ability to dictate terms in the paint.

Coates finished with 17 points and 14 rebounds. Wilson had 17 points, five assists and two blocks. South Carolina finished with 40 points in the paint and 17 more rebounds than Louisville.

Hines-Allen on the court would have helped. But not to that degree.

"They're two of the best posts in the game," Walz said. "[Coates] has a motor like I haven't seen in a long time. ...

"She doesn't worry about who [they're] playing. She just does it right because that's what you're supposed to do. I watch them on film, they're up 30 at half, and she's sprinting the floor every single time."

Asked if he thought South Carolina was really 24 points better than his team, Walz said no. He's probably right. But the roles are set for now.

Louisville has been to the Final Four, of course. The Cardinals have made that trip more often than South Carolina and played for the championship, something the Gamecocks have yet to do. But in each case, Louisville reached the semifinals as a surprise, a team that broke the bracket.

To do that once, let alone twice, is a feat worthy of celebrating, an indication both of what Walz can do with time and what players can do with the same. There is a reason people will remember the game against Baylor forever. But such runs aren't blueprints for the future.

You don't build a program to be the one that pulls off the upset. You build it to be the favorite.

Louisville is getting there. South Carolina is there.