When it comes to UConn, USC and A’ja Wilson are still looking for their breakthrough

You can win a national championship, but for some people in women’s college basketball, you haven’t really conquered the sport until you’ve beaten Connecticut and legendary coach Geno Auriemma.

And while South Carolina has already taken home a national title, Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks are still searching for their first win against five losses to the Huskies. It’s a run of futility they’ll try once again to snap Thursday when they welcome UConn to Colonial Life Arena at 7 p.m.

Year by year over the past three seasons, USC has narrowed the gap between itself and No. 1 Connecticut, which has lost just two games in that timespan. In three straight games dating back to 2015, Staley’s teams have lost by 25, 12 and then 11 points, and if you ask her, it’s only a matter of time until it finally happens.

“When you’re 0-for against a team, you want to win. And that’s the approach we’re going to take, to try to get one on UConn,” Staley said Wednesday. “Which is a real difficult feat, but we got to keep liking our chances with the amount of times we’ve played them.”

The Huskies are undefeated this season, and trying to focus in on one player on the floor is akin to picking your own poison, Staley said. But if there is an area of the game where she thinks the Gamecocks have the edge, it’s in the frontcourt.

“I do think we have an advantage in the inside and we got to utilize that,” Staley said. “We got to feed our post players as many touches as they can get. And I don’t think you can beat a UConn team by just two-ing them, you gotta hit some outside shots, some 3s, in order to beat them.”

And of course, South Carolina has one post player who happens to be very familiar with all that UConn brings to the table — senior A’ja Wilson, who has been a part of all three latest losses and also steadily improved her performance.

As a freshman, Wilson posted 10 points and six rebounds. A year later, she scored 13, pulled down six boards and blocked two shots. And last season, as a junior, she had 17 points, five rebounds and three stuffs.

“I think we played the toughest UConn team my freshman year,” Wilson said Wednesday. “So just to be out there just taking it all in at such a young age, being able to compete against the best — because UConn, they’re good at what they do. You can’t have any drops, you can’t slip up. And that’s our big thing. But that also comes with us staying in our system and our roles. And that’s my thing, how can I just make sure our team stays within its system?”

Wilson repeatedly hit on that theme of staying within the system on Wednesday. But of course, so far this season staying within the system for South Carolina has meant Wilson producing numbers that surpass even her previous All-American stats. She averages more than 10 points per game than USC’s next closest player, fellow forward Alexis Jennings, and nearly four more rebounds.

In a season in which Wilson is the clear front-runner for national player of the year honors, a standout performance against UConn could all but clinch the award.

Connecticut, meanwhile, has just one player who can match Wilson for size — 6-foot-6 Azurá Stevens, who has mostly come off the bench except in cases of injured starters. If coach Geno Auriemma decides to keep Stevens on the bench to begin the game, South Carolina will have a significant size advantage with both Jennings and Wilson.

South Carolina and Connecticut square off at Colonial Life Arena at 7 p.m. on Thursday. The game will be televised on ESPN.

This story was originally published February 1, 2018 at 9:44 AM with the headline "When it comes to UConn, USC and A’ja Wilson are still looking for their breakthrough."