South Carolina women's basketball: Guarding Diamond Miller is the key to the Elite Eight
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South Carolina’s primary challenge Monday night will be slowing down Marylands All-American Diamond Miller.
Miller was named a unanimous first-team all-Big Ten this season and second-team All-American. She averaged 19.6 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 2.9 assists per game. Miller does a little bit of everything for Maryland and does it at a very high level.
Despite the annual series, South Carolina hasn’t faced Miller since 2019, when she was a freshman, because of injuries. That game doesn’t give South Carolina much insight into guarding Miller (Brea Beal, also a freshman in that game, said she didn’t remember that game despite pulling down ten rebounds, “I guess that’s what four years of college does to you.”).
“The first game, it was a really, really tough game, but it was close until the end of the third quarter,” Maryland guard Abby Meyers said. “We didn’t have Diamond, and we didn’t have some intangibles that we could have controlled better, and I think we’re going to be prepared for this game tomorrow.”
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South Carolina has prepared for MIller each of the past two seasons when she was a game-time decision, so the Gamecocks didn’t have to start their scouting report from scratch this weekend.
She likes to get out in transition,” Aliyah Boston said. “She’s long and strong and can play a lot of different positions that they need her to. So she really just opens up the floor a lot more.”
“Very athletic guard, very long,” said Beal. “Able to score out of any situation. Very talented.”
Sunday night, Beal played it coy when asked if she would guard Miller. She said she wasn’t sure yet, then admitted she was making sure not to give away the game plan.
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Miller is a guard, but at 6-3 she plays the four in Maryland’s five-out offense. That makes her, positionally, Victoria Saxton’s guard. Dawn Staley confirmed Saxton will start out on Miller, but it will be all hands on deck.
“We definitely have to mix up the looks,” she said. “They start a smaller lineup so V will be challenged in trying to guard her. Brea Beal is going to be challenged with having to guard her. The beauty of what we’ve been able to do all season long is give people like Diamond different looks. We can put Raven on her and Raven can play underneath her a little bit. We can put LA on her and LA can be long on her. V can use her fifth-year savvy in beating Diamond to the spots. We’re going to have to play different people on her.”
Miller is just thankful to finally get to play against South Carolina.
“I missed the last two times playing South Carolina, so it’s just exciting,” she said. “For some reason God was like, you’re going to play this game. So I’m truly grateful that God has given me the opportunity to play the sport that I love at the highest level on one of the top stages in this year. It’s going to be fun. And Aliyah is a great player. They have a lot of great players, and our class 2019 is really thriving right now. It’s going to be fun.”
South Carolina and Maryland play at 7:00 Monday in the Elite Eight. The game is on ESPN.
