The No. 7/6 South Carolina women’s basketball team will face its toughest opponent of the season in the No. 1/1 University of Connecticut Thursday night at Colonial Life Arena.
Over the past few years, this has become one of the biggest games of the regular season for women’s college basketball. These two teams have played each other at least once a year since the 2014-15 season, with UConn winning all of those games, and has consistently been a top-10 battle with a national champion on the court. However, this will be the first season in which either team has a lower ranking than No. 6 while the other is ranked first.
That rings true for this year but with a little bit of a twist. The Gamecocks are the defending national champions as the Huskies were upset in the Final Four by Mississippi State last season after winning four straight national titles from 2013 through 2016. If this game does not get a women’s college basketball fan hyped up, then nothing will.
The key matchup will consist of arguably two of the best players in college basketball — junior guard/forward Katie Lou Samuelson of UConn and senior forward A’ja Wilson of South Carolina. Both players earned first-team All-American last year and recorded career highs in points per game. Samuelson finished with 20.2 points per game last year, good for 18th best in the nation.
As of Wednesday, Wilson is seventh in the nation in points per game with 23.1 compared to Samuelson’s 17.0. Though Samuelson isn’t averaging as many points, she is making her mark from beyond the arc. She is shooting just over 46 percent from behind the three-point line — the best she’s shot from that range in her career — and is seventh-best in the nation this season. Expect these two superstars to have huge impacts on the outcome of this game, and Wilson knows what her team needs to do.
“We just have to go out and execute and do well to stay within our system,” Wilson said.
Another matchup to watch for is the one between junior forwards Azura Stevens of UConn and Alexis Jennings of South Carolina. Both are ranked in the top-15 in the nation in field goal percentage — 64.1 percent for Jennings and 60.8 for Stevens.
After the Gamecocks hosted the Missouri Tigers over the weekend, there were accusations made concerning fan behavior. This is not a subject head coach Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks want to think about right now, especially with the No. 1 team up next on the calendar.
“The priority right now is UConn, and that’s been my focus. Did I lose a little sleep last night? Yes, yes I did,” Staley said. “There’s another game to be played. I’m responsible for 12 individuals that want to beat UConn."
There is speculation that UConn could’ve beaten South Carolina for the national championship if Mississippi State didn’t end their season a few days earlier. This just gives the Huskies even more of a reason to come in hungry and for the Gamecocks to prove that they earned the title.