South Carolina women's basketball: The Road to the Final Four - Learning to dominate in 2021
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Under Dawn Staley, South Carolina has made the Final Four four times in the last seven NCAA tournaments, and almost certainly would have made a fifth appearance had the 2020 tournament not been canceled. Each team had its own story – from upstart party crashers to an unlikely run to a wire-to-wire juggernaut – but there is one thing they all have in common. There was one game during the season that put the Gamecocks on their path to the Final Four.
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The Background
By March 2021, South Carolina wasn’t exactly struggling. The Gamecocks had lost just four games, all but one to top ten teams, and they went into the final day of the regular season facing Texas A&M in a winner-take-all game for the SEC regular season championship.
But things weren’t quite clicking. Perhaps because everything had come together so easily the season before, South Carolina seemed to have spent the entire season trying to figure itself out and certainly didn’t look like a Final Four team. There was the ugly loss to NC State at the beginning of the season, after which Dawn Staley ripped the Gamecocks as “Uncoachable. Untamable, just not listening. It was just selfish play.”
There was a bizarre loss to a Tennessee team that was barely inside the top 25. And then South Carolina was outplayed by Texas A&M for most of the game despite the stakes.
South Carolina’s biggest problem was that Aliyah Boston, despite usually being the biggest and best player on the court, was prone to disappearing for stretches. There was no single cause. Sometimes her teammates forgot about Boston, or failed to get her the ball when she had position. Other times Boston was too passive. At the time, I described it as, “Boston is such a smart player that she almost always makes the right decision. But when you are the best player on the court, the right decision isn’t always the best decision. Sometimes you have to be selfish.”
It was so bad that following the Tennessee loss Staley moved Boston to the high post so she could run the offense. The idea was that if the ball started out in Boston’s hands, she would get more opportunities to finish.
It didn’t work, and Boston averaged just 7.3 points on 37% shooting, 11.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 2.0 blocks over the final three games of the season. The stretch may have cost her SEC Player of the Year
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The Game
During the week between the Texas A&M loss and the SEC tournament quarterfinals against Alabama, Staley preached the two Ds: deliberate and dominant.
“I’m going to promise that we’re going to look like a different offensive basketball team come Friday night,” she said during the week.
Deliberate meant other players could still get theirs, but they had to make sure Boston got hers too. Dominant meant Boston needed to play up to her potential and not take plays off. Staley and bigs coach Fred Chmiel had been harping on it all season, but this time was different.
The light bulb came on. Boston had 16 points and 13 rebounds in a 75-63 win over a pesky Alabama team. Zia Cooke had 22 points. Destanni Henderson had 18 points and five assists. That was what the offense was supposed to look like
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The Aftermath
South Carolina got revenge against Tennessee in the semifinals with a 67-52 win. Boston had 15 points and 11 rebounds in that game.
“I wanted to be physical and be dominant,” she said. “Coaches have really talked to me about that.”
In the championship game, Boston had one of the all-time great games in program history, scoring 27 points to go with 10 rebounds and four blocks. South Carolina beat Georgia 67-62 and Boston was named tournament MVP. Now South Carolina looked like a Final Four team.
“Always be dominant” became a catchphrase for Boston, the rare athlete who can say that and still sound modest. There was also a subtle but noticeable change in Boston’s personality. Once a giggly kid in interviews, now Boston was, well still giggly, but also confident in herself. She made jokes, solicited Netflix recommendations, and spoke thoughtfully instead of reciting cliches.
It was an important individual moment of understanding, but it was also a team moment of understanding. Staley likes to say the ball will find the right place, and now it was happening. South Carolina cruised to the Final Four and was inches from a trip to the championship game.
Victaria Saxton had a career-high 20 points in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Boston had 19 points against Oregon State. Cooke scored 17 in the Sweet 16. Laeticia Amihere had 10 points and nine blocks against Texas. In the national semifinal, Cooke had a spectacular 25 points. Henderson single-handedly erase a second-half deficit with 18 points, and Boston had 16 rebounds and four blocks. The stage was set for the 2021-22 season.
