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South Carolina women's basketball: Fever pick Aliyah Boston first overall

On3 imageby: Chris Wellbaum04/10/23ChrisWellbaum
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(Stier/Getty Images)

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Aliyah Boston was selected by the Indiana Fever with the first pick in the 2023 WNBA Draft. 

Boston is the second Gamecock drafted first overall, following A’ja Wilson. Wilson was was taken by the Las Vegas Aces with the first pick in 2018. She is the 14th Gamecock selected and 10th player of the Dawn Staley era.

In Indiana, Boston will rejoin former teammate Destanni Henderson (another former Gamecock, Tiffany Mitchell, had played her entire career in Indiana before signing with Minnesota this offseason). The pair won the 2022 national championship together.

Henderson was at the draft, cheering on her former and future teammates.

“She was like, we’re reunited and we’re teammates again, and I was like, and it feels so good. You know the song?” Boston said. “That’s really what it was. Honestly super excited to be with Henny again. It was really great playing with her in South Carolina. To already have that type of connection I think it really is just going to help us.”

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Boston is the most decorated player in South Carolina program history. She has won almost every award possible, including consensus national player of the year in 2022, a four-time all-American, four-time Lisa Leslie Award-winner, two-time SEC Player of the Year, and four-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year.

Boston is South Carolina’s career leader in rebounds and double-doubles and also holds the single-season record in each category. She holds 14 career, 14 single-season, and five single-game program records.

Boston helped lead the Gamecocks to the consensus #1 ranking before the 2020 NCAA Tournament was canceled. She led the Gamecocks to three Final Fours and the wire-to-wire national championship in 2022. 

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Boston has seemingly been locked in as the top pick for two years now. She is an elite defender, rebounder, and shot blocker, and is one of the best prospects to enter the draft in some time.

Boston often faced double teams before she even got the ball in college and triple and quadruple teams after that. She won’t see that kind of defense in the WNBA and experts expect that her numbers will take a big jump.

“I’m pretty confident just because of just simply spacing, I think it’s going to allow me to be able to work a little bit better,” Boston said. “Just being able to watch the pros prior to joining the league you can just see how they can just get to work, whether they make the shot or not. But just to be able to have that, it’s going to be pretty nice.”

Indiana has been a perennial cellar-dweller over the past seven seasons, finishing with the league’s worst record three times during that span. It was no surprise the Fever picked Boston, who said she has had frequent contact with Fever general manager Lin Dunn.

“We talked quite a few times,” Boston said. “She was super excited to get to know me. She was very welcoming, and I got to talk to the entire staff, and it just almost made me feel at home even before this was a real reality. So, I’m just really thankful to everybody there.”

The WNBA preseason starts on May 5, and the regular season starts on May 19. Indiana’s first game is on May 19 against Connecticut.

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