No. 1 South Carolina starts SEC road trip at Kentucky. How to watch, what to know
No. 1 South Carolina women’s basketball (21-1, 9-1 SEC) begins a two-game SEC road stretch Thursday with a trip to face the Kentucky Wildcats in Lexington.
The Gamecocks defeated then-No. 21 Kentucky by 20 points on Jan. 9, and the Wildcats have been in a conference play free-fall since then. Kentucky (9-10, 2-7 SEC) has dropped six of its past seven SEC matchups since losing to South Carolina and fell below .500 for the first time this season with an overtime loss to Texas A&M on Sunday.
South Carolina, which ascended to a lone spot at top of the SEC standings with Tennessee’s recent losses, is on a nine-game winning streak in conference action. The Gamecocks are coming off a weeklong break since their 83-51 win over Alabama on Feb. 3.
Head coach Dawn Staley said USC will be without its top two bench contributors, Laeticia Amihere and Kamilla Cardoso, as they both compete with their respective national teams in the FIBA Women’s World Cup 2022 Qualifying Tournament through Feb. 13. Amihere and Cardoso won’t be with the team against Kentucky or on its next trip to Georgia on Sunday.
Here’s what to watch for in Thursday’s game.
Aliyah Boston continuing on National Player of the Year campaign
Gamecocks star forward Aliyah Boston ranks among the nation’s top-10 shot blockers and rebounders.
Boston, who is currently on a program-best streak of 15 consecutive double-doubles, is USC’s backbone on both ends of the floor. The junior is No. 1 in HerHoopStats’ “win shares” advanced metric, which approximates the total number of wins a player produces through their play on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court.
Boston averages 17.2 points on an SEC-best 55.4% field-goal percentage with 11.8 rebounds and 3.0 blocks per game.
Iowa sophomore Caitlin Clark, who recently became the first college basketball player to drop consecutive 30-point triple-doubles, has made a push with her recent performances. But Staley remained adamant Boston should remain the front-runner.
“I think when we look at what Aliyah has done over an entire basketball season, there is no doubt,” Staley said. “There wouldn’t even be a question mark if it was somebody else. ... I don’t want to be a part of tearing another great player down. I’m just only going by historically speaking.
“We’re the number one team in the country. Hopefully, we will stay that way for Aliyah’s sake, because it seems like any little crack and anything can be used against her. Aliyah Boston, by far, if she continues what she’s done (and) what she’d been doing, is women’s basketball’s national player of the year.”
SEC leading scorer Rhyne Howard unable to lift troubled Wildcats
Kentucky’s Rhyne Howard is projected to be the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s WNBA draft, but even her SEC-leading 20.4 points per game haven’t been enough to lift the Wildcats, once ranked in The AP top 20, out of their conference slump.
Kentucky has dropped all but two games in conference play and sits at No. 13 in the SEC standings, ahead of only Auburn. The Wildcats have gone from a program with national attention to being left out of the recent NCAA tournament bracket projections from ESPN’s Charlie Creme.
Howard was held to just nine points on a season-low 2 of 14 from the field when she played at South Carolina on Jan. 9.
Still, Staley knows the competition level in the SEC — Auburn defeated a then-No. 4 Tennessee team on Jan. 27 — and isn’t discrediting the Wildcats, despite their struggles.
“We’re approaching it just like they’re one of the top teams in this league,” Staley said. “Because anybody can win on any given day, and the moment you take your foot off the gas, that’s when a team can hurt you.”
USC bench continues to grow, to be tested without Amihere and Cardoso
The Gamecocks’ bench has averaged 31 points in their last four games, getting young players involved in dominant performances against Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Florida and Alabama.
With Amihere and Cardoso out for the next two games, Staley is looking to see even more from other USC reserves. Amihere and Cardoso have gotten the sixth- and seventh-most minutes of any South Carolina player, averaging 5.8 and 7.6 points in SEC play, respectively.
Staley mentioned freshman Sania Feagin and graduate LeLe Grissett as two options to potentially see more time on the floor in their absence.
“We’ve got a number of people that we can fill in,” Staley said. “It’ll be a lot different than having (Amihere) and Kamilla, but different doesn’t always mean a bad thing. Different is we’re smaller, we’re quicker. We’ve probably got more downhill drives versus back to the basket, especially with LeLe. We can go a number of ways.”
How to watch South Carolina vs. Kentucky
Who: No. 1 South Carolina Gamecocks (21-1, 9-1 SEC) vs. Kentucky Wildcats (9-10, 2-7 SEC)
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Where: Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, Ky.
