Boasting victories in its last four meetings with Clemson, the South Carolina women’s basketball team faces its rival once again in a Thursday night matchup.
It will be a night of celebration no matter what, as last year’s Gamecock team will receive its SEC Championship rings and the banner for that title.
Senior center Elem Ibiam said the ceremony will get South Carolina hyped to play the Tigers, looking at it as a sign of the hard work it took to accomplish those goals and striving to do even better.
Head coach Dawn Staley hopes her program can continue to have celebrations like Thursday, while maintaining the mental ability to focus on the task at hand.
The Gamecocks have also admittedly been thinking about a bit is if they can earn the No. 1 ranking in next week’s AP poll. No. 1 Connecticut lost earlier this week to Stanford, so South Carolina is hoping to slide to the top if it can take care of business.
Taking care of business and steadily improving seems to be the Gamecocks’ main priority over any early-season polls.
“It actually doesn’t even matter,” Staley said of a potential No. 1 ranking. “Those things are so far out of our control. We only can try to get better, put our players in a position to keep winning basketball games, and everything else will fall into place if it’s for us.”
South Carolina (1-0) won its season opener against Southern California last Saturday with sophomore forward Alaina Coates commanding the inside post.
Clemson (2-0) will probably see a similar style of getting into the paint from the Gamecocks. The Tigers must prepare for a different beast in the South Carolina frontcourt, something Clemson has not experienced in its two wins over Troy and UNC Greensboro.
For Clemson to even compete with the Gamecocks, it will need freshman Shelbie Davenport to get hot from outside. She's hit five of her 13 three-point attempts in the two games and leads the team with 17.5 points per contest.
The Gamecocks are hoping to see freshman A’ja Wilson take off after a quiet first game, where she had four points on 2-of-7 shooting and five rebounds.
When she was getting recruited to play at South Carolina, Wilson never got the chance to see the team play Clemson. She showed excitement in getting her first taste of the rivalry at 7 p.m. Thursday.
“It’s very exciting — these girls got me really pumped for this rivalry,” she said. “Throughout any sport, Clemson’s kind the target we always want to get at. So really, I’m excited to actually be playing in this game.”