One simple change has Gamecock freshman Zia Cooke ‘back to her explosive self’
When South Carolina women’s basketball visited Dayton in mid-November, it looked like Zia Cooke had arrived.
Playing in front of dozens of friends and family members who had made the two-hour drive from her hometown of Toledo, the freshman guard was electric in just her third career game, scoring 27 points on 9-of-15 shooting while pulling down seven rebounds to lead the Gamecocks to an easy win.
But for the hyper-athletic Cooke, that brilliant game was followed by inconsistency. The fourth-ranked player in her recruiting class, Cooke came in with coach Dawn Staley praising her competitiveness and flair for the dramatic, and she quickly enthralled Gamecock fans at Colonial Life Arena with explosive drives to the lane and acrobatic finishes at the basket.
Yet throughout nonconference play, Cooke’s balance between spectacular scores and empty possessions began to tilt a little too heavily in the wrong direction for Staley.
In 13 non-SEC games, Cooke averaged 10.4 points on 35% shooting from the field, 34.2% from the field. After that Dayton game to the end of 2019, those numbers dipped to 8.5 points, 32.4% from the field and 33% from 3.
In South Carolina’s lone loss of the season to date, Cooke shot 4-for-19 from the floor. Three games later, against Temple, she was 1-for-7 with 3 points in 26 minutes, a relative non-factor in a tough game.
Since the start of league play, though, the 5-foot-9 guard who’s started every game this season has recovered her form. Leading the team with 17.4 points per game against SEC opponents, she’s also upped her efficiency, shooting 42.9% from the field and 44% from 3.
“I’ve just been staying in the gym, studying basketball, not just in the gym but also ... off the court. So that’s the been the main thing for me off the court, studying the game instead of just thinking I have to get shots up. I had to learn the game a little bit,” Cooke said.
That fits in with what Staley has said in the past about Cooke’s development — she wants her point guard of the future to get better at choosing when to attack herself and when to set up a teammate. It’s never been a question of physical ability or attitude, but the same aggressive, do-everything mindset that made Cooke one of the best players in the country in high school needed to be adjusted when she got to college.
Helping in that process is senior point guard Tyasha Harris, whose style of play is that of a more traditional distributor and floor general.
“She’s actually helped me a lot, especially with my passing and just to be calm,” Cooke said of Harris. “She’s taught me how to be calm, and with my passing and just to become a leader. When she leaves, I want to take her lead.”
There’s also another, physical explanation for Cooke’s recent improvement in Staley’s eyes.
“She dropped a few pounds, basically. That’s what it came down to,” Staley said. “She wasn’t as explosive, she wasn’t confident, and I think she was just carrying more than she was used to, and then she couldn’t navigate through that. So then over the Christmas break, she just changed her eating habits. It wasn’t much, it’s probably four or five pounds, and now she’s back to her explosive self.”
Staley and the Gamecocks take pride in the fact that their offensive identity isn’t tied to one player’s dominance — at least four players have scored in double figures in every SEC game so far, including five this past Thursday against Missouri.
But Cooke’s play is still key to South Carolina, Staley said. She is the team’s leading 3-point shooter by both attempts and makes, and according to Her Hoop Stats, she leads the squad in usage rate.
“Because she gets easy buckets, her shot, her 3 is working for her, and that’s kinda who we need her to be. I think she has a direct impact on why we’ve been as successful down this stretch and coming into the SEC, because her ability to keep defenses honest by her efficiency,” Staley said.
WHEN DO THE GAMECOCKS PLAY NEXT?
Who: No. 1 South Carolina (17-1, 5-0 SEC) vs. No. 10 Mississippi State (16-2, 4-0 SEC)
When: 7 p.m. Monday
Where: Colonial Life Arena
Watch: ESPN2
Listen: 107.5 FM in Columbia area
