WBB: Five Things to Watch - Home stretch

I hate to bring bad news, but there are only six more games and three more weeks of regular season basketball. Here are five things to watch as South Carolina prepares for the home stretch.

1. Aliyah Aliyah Boston Boston

To recap, Boston is averaging 17.2 points, 11.8 rebounds, 3.0 blocks, and 1.4 assists per game. She has recorded a double-double in 15 consecutive games. That’s the second-longest streak in SEC history behind Sylvia Fowles, a sure-fire Hall of Famer. She is the presumptive national player of the year and likely national defensive player of the year, and she certainly deserves both awards.

At this point, everyone should just enjoy watching greatness. So far, only the officials have figured out how to limit Boston. Barring injury, there’s no reason to think Boston won’t continue to play at this level – she’s been doing it for almost three months now.

Will she catch Fowles’ record? How many school records will she set this year, and how many more will she break next season? Will she be able to avenge last season’s Final Four heartbreak? And when do we start discussing whether her statue goes next to A’ja’s or across from it?

2. Rivers and Breezy

It’s funny how things work out. If Raven Johnson doesn’t suffer a season-ending injury in the second game of the year, then Saniya Rivers doesn’t end up finding her niche as a backup point guard. If Rivers doesn’t accept and adjust to that role, it doesn’t open up a position for Bree Hall as the big guard and extra wing. But that’s what happened, and since the last “bye week” both freshmen have thrived in their new roles. 

Over the last four games, Rivers is averaging 6.0 points, 2.0 rebounds, 1.8 steals, and 1.3 assists in 14 minutes a game. The biggest jump has been in her shooting: she is 10-21 (47.6%) over the last four games after starting the season 7-36 (19.4%).

Hall had her breakout a little earlier when she shut down and outplayed Rhyne Howard in the Kentucky game. That performance was unexpected, but it propelled her to become a reliable backup at the two and three. Hall is averaging 6.0 points and 2.3 rebounds in 12.8 minutes. She is 3-6 from three and shoots 47.1% overall. 

Both are big, rangy guards, closer to 6-2 than their listed heights and Rivers in particular is extremely athletic. They know how to use their size to their advantage on defense, especially as a change of pace from the smaller starters Destanni Henderson (5-6) and Zia Cooke (5-9). That was part of the scouting report on Hall coming out of high school, but certainly not for Rivers. She’s worked hard to get better defensively and is good at using her long arms to be disruptive. Together they have been key cogs in the SEC’s best defense. They have solidified the Gamecocks’ second unit, which not that long ago was a question mark.

3. Rocky Tennessee

Tennessee is alone in second place in the SEC, just one game behind South Carolina and a game up on the rest of the conference. Tennessee can still win the SEC and doesn’t need any help to do it. The February 20 game at South Carolina looms as the championship decider and most important game on the conference slate. The Lady Vols are still the biggest threat to the Gamecocks. But…

Is there any team with more question marks than the Lady Vols right now?

A couple of weeks ago, Tennessee was ranked fourth in the country, led the SEC by a game, and was dreaming of possibly swiping the Greensboro Region from South Carolina. Tennessee led the nation in rebounding and field goal percentage defense, was second in rebounding margin, and had allowed just one opponent to shoot over 40%. 

Tennessee lost Keyen Green to a season-ending knee injury against Georgia on January 23. Green’s numbers were modest – 7.0 points and 3.2 rebounds – but she was the heart and soul of the Lady Vols and one of the keys to the defense. It’s no coincidence that the Lady Vols’ slump started after Green’s injury.

Since then, the Lady Vols were shocked by last place Auburn, needed overtime to survive middling Arkansas, and were blown out by unranked Florida. They had a chance to regain their footing Sunday against UConn. I waited to post this until Monday because I wanted to see how Tennessee responded against UConn. Tennessee might be waiting until Monday to play the game, too. It was an utter no-show by the Lady Vols.

In the last four games, Tennessee has allowed 39.1%, 38.2%, 53.2%, and shooting. They were outrebounded by two at Florida despite averaging 11 more rebounds per game than the Gators. UConn outrebounded Tennessee by eight in the first half as it built a lead. Then the Huskies shot 58% in the decisive third quarter. They’ve given up 78.4 points per game, 24 points more than they were averaging. In a nutshell, Tennessee won with defense and rebounding but goes into the season’s home stretch doing neither. Green isn’t coming back, so Tennessee will have to figure out how to play without her.

4. Everybody else

With Monday night’s pivotal LSU-Ole Miss game still to come, there are five teams with three or four losses. There are two more with five. That doesn’t even include Texas A&M (3-7) or Kentucky (2-7), two teams expected to finish in the top half of the league but are currently in the bottom four.

Outside of South Carolina (and the aforementioned mystery that is Tennessee), the SEC’s good teams haven’t been as good as expected (Georgia and Kentucky), and a bunch of teams have been better than expected (Florida, LSU, Missouri, Mississippi State, even Vanderbilt).

5. Tourney positioning

South Carolina is eyeing two tournament seeds: SEC and NCAA. The SEC does not break ties for the regular-season title, but does for tournament seeding. If South Carolina wins out, it would claim the regular-season title outright and the top seed in Nashville. If Tennessee beats South Carolina and wins out, both would claim the regular-season title but Tennessee would be the top seed in the tournament. Other teams are mathematically still alive for the league title but need help. 

As mentioned above, South Carolina is also playing for the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament and the Greensboro region. At one point Tennessee had an outside chance to steal Greensboro, but that is unlikely now. NC State also could have made a case, but the loss at Notre Dame and the head-to-head loss, probably put that to rest. Louisville’s loss at NC State probably eliminated the Cardinals, who were a two-seed in the first top 16 reveal. Other contenders for the top overall seed, like Stanford, Texas, and Arizona, wouldn’t be placed in Greensboro.

You know Dawn Staley wants to win the SEC Tournament, but how South Carolina does in Nashville probably has minimal impact on the NCAA seeding.

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