The South Carolina women's basketball team defeated LSU 66-59, giving the team its 31st straight SEC win. Junior guard Destanni Henderson and sophomore forward Aliyah Boston led the Gamecocks to success.
Henderson scored three of Carolina's four three-pointers, one of which followed her driving the ball down the court and making a left-handed layup in the second quarter. She continued to be an offensive threat the entire game.
Even though Henderson deserves a lot of credit for keeping the Gamecocks in an offensive rhythm, Boston made an impact on both sides of the ball. She scored 12 points and made 13 rebounds and six blocks, making this game her 10th double-double of the season.
In the first quarter, South Carolina went on a 12-0 run which made it difficult for LSU to catch up. The Gamecocks used LSU's lack of offense and lose-playing defense as advantage the entire matchup.
Despite the great offensive play from Henderson, she as well as the whole team, struggled with turnovers. The Gamecocks had 20 turnovers for the day. Eight turnovers were in the fourth quarter alone.
Henderson said she felt the turnovers came from careless mistakes.
"I feel like a lot of times we can be careless and we're not really watching the defense, we're just worried about getting whoever the ball. We just have to make sure we read the defense first, but also protect the ball," Henderson said.
It was evident this game would have been a blowout if it was not for South Carolina giving up the ball.
"I just gave them the liberty to try and fix it, and I don't think we did that," Head Coach Dawn Staley said. "But at some point, players really have to take it upon themselves to be able to make plays in those situations."
The Gamecocks took advantage of second chance opportunities off the glass, which is something that LSU did not execute on.
Sophomore guard Zia Cooke was also a large part of Sunday's game. She started South Carolina off with the first 4 points of the game and scored 13 total points. Cooke and Henderson have similar playing styles and Staley said she is looking forward to putting them both in the point guard position.
"I just thought, just changing that line up would benefit [against] LSU," Staley said.
The Gamecocks need to fix turnover issues in order to beat No. 16 Tennessee on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. The Lady Volunteers are 12-6 with a 6-3 record in the SEC.