How to watch, what to watch for in South Carolina’s loaded Thanksgiving tournament
South Carolina basketball’s 3-point shooting performance last Sunday against Maryland was bad, no way around it.
But Dawn Staley’s biggest concern moving forward isn’t the Gamecocks’ shooting. It’s what they’re doing, or not doing, to grab missed shots.
Maryland pulled down 53 total rebounds against USC, 22 of them offensive boards. That total number is more than any other opponent has collected against South Carolina since 2010. The number of offensive rebounds is the third most in three years.
Those statistics aren’t necessarily surprising, as Staley no longer has her ace rebounder A’ja Wilson and redshirt senior forward Alexis Jennings has had limited minutes due to injury. But as the Gamecocks get set to play in the Vancouver Showcase over Thanksgiving, the head coach doesn’t want any excuses.
“If we don’t get better rebounding the ball and ensuring that people aren’t getting 22 offensive rebounds on us, we’re going to have a long Thanksgiving,” Staley said after the Maryland loss. “If I know us, we’re going to get better. We’re going to get better over the next two days that we’ll have practice (Tuesday and Wednesday), and then we’ll have a better showing.”
The Gamecocks will face a tall order in Vancouver, literally. No. 1 Notre Dame features a pair of rebounding talents in forwards Jessica Shepard and Brianna Turner, and No. 9 Oregon State has a 6-foot-8 center in Joanna Grymek to go along with 5-foot-10 top rebounder Mikayla Pivec, who’s averaging more than 10 boards a game.
USC’s rebounding rate is 47.1 percent, 240th in the country. Oregon State and Notre Dame are both at 60 percent or higher, in the top 15 nationally.
To start at least, the Gamecocks will have a favorable matchup against East Tennessee State. The Buccaneers rank 159th in the NCAA in rebounding rate and 227th in offensive rebounding rate. ETSU also has no players taller than 6-foot-2, so Jennings should be able to dominate physically.
More than that, though, Staley wants Jennings, a team captain, and her fellow team leaders to help steady South Carolina’s ship in Vancouver, especially during the preparation phase.
“We got pretty good leadership ... Everybody needs to get better. Leadership comes from me, and it trickles down to everyone else, so I got to be a better leader for our team, as well as the captains of our team have to be really responsible for what’s happening on the floor and do something about it. Not in games, in practice, because that’s where habits are formed,” Staley said.
VANCOUVER SHOWCASE
When: 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 22 (First round)
5:30 p.m. OR 11:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 23 (Second round)
2 p.m. OR 4:30 p.m. OR 8 p.m. OR 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 24 (Final round)
Where: Vancouver, Canada
First round matchups: No. 13 South Carolina (2-1) vs. East Tennessee State (0-4), No. 9 Oregon State (3-0) vs. Western Kentucky (0-4), No. 1 Notre Dame (3-0) vs. Gonzaga (4-0), Drake (4-0) vs. Rutgers (4-0),
TV: Streaming online at VanShowcase.com