Battle of bigs: USC, Tennessee bring plenty of length into ranked showdown
Coming off about as dominant a win as possible, South Carolina women’s basketball is set to face a tall task — metaphorically and literally.
When the No. 1 Gamecocks welcome No. 22 Tennessee to Colonial Life Arena on Sunday, it will mark the start of three consecutive ranked opponents for USC, culminating in a showdown with powerhouse UConn.
And that starts with a Lady Vol squad that boasts height “like no other team that we’ve played,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. All of Tennessee’s starters and most of their backups stand 6-foot or taller. Especially on the perimeter, the Lady Vols have guards who can overwhelm opponents with size.
“I’m not sure that we’ve faced a team that had that much length, but we’ve faced teams with pretty good length,” senior forward Mikiah Herbert Harrigan said. “I feel like we have pretty good length as well, so just going out there and doing what we do.”
The Gamecocks and Lady Vols rank first and second in the nation, respectively, in blocks per game. They both also rank in the top five nationally in rebounding rate, according to Her Hoop Stats. In other words, neither team should be able to overwhelm the other with sheer size.
What South Carolina might have an edge in is team speed — the Gamecocks play at a faster pace than the Lady Volunteers and average 17 fast-break points per game, compared to 6.5 for their opponents on the season.
“We gotta play fast, try to get up and down the floor, not allow their height to bother us in the halfcourt,” Staley said.
Tennessee will counter, however, with one of the SEC’s best players this season, junior guard/forward Rennia Davis. A second-team All-SEC player a year ago, Davis has grown into one of the conference’s top scorers and rebounders, averaging 18.1 and 8.2 per game, respectively. And at 6-foot-2, she reminds Staley of another large guard the Gamecocks have already played — Kentucky’s Rhyne Howard, who scored 28 points against USC while mostly being defended by 6-foot freshman Brea Beal.
“(Davis is) very Rhyne Howard-like. She’s long, she can score three ways — get to the basket, pull-up deadly on the baseline, and then she’s got step-back 3s,” Staley said. “Tough matchup. We gotta put Brea Beal in a position in where she can just contest and be there and make it a little bit hard for her instead of giving her wide-open looks, comfortable looks.”
The Lady Vols also have an elite freshman to match USC’s loaded rookie class — 6-foot-2 guard Jordan Horston, ranked No. 2 overall in the class of 2019, is averaging 10.4 points, 5.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game. She and Gamecock freshman Zia Cooke both grew up in Ohio and took official recruiting visits together, and just as Cooke has stepped in right away to make a difference in USC’s lineup, Horston has made an immediate impact on a roster full of talent that under-achieved in recent seasons.
“I think having someone like a Horston who’s very, very unselfish and she likes to pass the basketball (but) she can score — I think when you have a point guard like that that is unselfish and thinks about getting teammates involved, it helps the overall because everybody else is receiving the ball, and they like that part of it,” Staley said.
Amihere out
Freshman forward Laeticia Amihere, who scored a career-high 16 points against Ole Miss on Thursday, will miss the game against Tennessee as she competes with the Canadian national team. She is expected to return to the team in roughly a week.
When do the Gamecocks play next?
Who: No. 1 South Carolina (20-1, 8-0 SEC) vs. No. 22 Tennessee (17-4, 7-1 SEC)
When: 1 p.m. Sunday
Where: Colonial Life Arena
Watch: ESPN2
Listen: 107.5 FM in Columbia area
This story was originally published February 1, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
