The South Carolina women’s basketball team became the first Division I program to reach 20 wins this season after it defeated the Florida Gators in Gainesville on Jan. 30. The Gamecocks own a 20-1 record this season and sit tied atop the SEC standings with an 8-1 conference record.
South Carolina has a perfect record against teams ranked in the AP Top 25, amassing nine victories against ranked teams with four wins coming at home, three on the road and two neutral site triumphs.
On its way to winning the Bad Boy Mowers Women’s Battle 4 Atlantis in November 2021, the Gamecocks defeated No. 9 Oregon and No. 2 Connecticut in back-to-back games in Paradise Island, Bahamas. South Carolina beat the two Top-10 opponents by a combined 33 points.
“I just think having that hard schedule, it was a good time for us to learn, but also prepared us because the SEC is just, it’s physical, and that’s what it is. And teams come to compete every game,” junior forward Aliyah Boston said.
The Gamecocks are ranked No. 1 in the most recent AP Top 25 poll after receiving 29 of 30 first-place votes. The team has sat at the top of the rankings for 13 straight weeks and is in the midst of an eight-game win streak in conference play after losing its SEC opener at Missouri by one point in overtime.
“A switch went off and they just are making the commitment to be better, to perform better, to be more efficient, to defend, to not turn the ball over,” head coach Dawn Staley said. “So, we’re becoming a more complete basketball team.”
While Staley’s team has beaten a host of ranked opponents during the season, the Gamecocks also got the better of five separate national championship-winning head coaches during the campaign. According to the ESPN Stats and Info Twitter account, this is the first instance of a team defeating five coaches with national titles since the 1999-2000 season.
Three women have stood out for Staley’s squad this season and earned themselves places in the midseason Wooden Award Top 25 Watchlist. Boston, senior guard Destanni Henderson and junior guard Zia Cooke have led the way for the Gamecocks throughout the year.
Boston has been an anchoring paint presence for the Gamecocks. She is leading the team in points with an average of 17.6 points per game and averaging 12.8 rebounds. She also set a program mark with her current streak of double-doubles that sits at 14 and counting.
South Carolina's defense has been the driving force of its strong play through the midway point of the conference schedule. It's allowed the fewest points this season of any team in the SEC.
The team is third in the country in field goal shooting defense, with opponents averaging 32.7 percent from the field and allows just over 50 opponent points per game, good for sixth nationally.
“I just feel with every big win that we have it instills some confidence in our team, they know they’re pretty good and they know they can defend pretty well," Staley said.
The team will lean on its players’ experience from these high-profile matchups to try and continue that momentum into postseason play.
“I know that we have a tough schedule and I know I’ve never played these teams before, but they’ve experienced it and they helped me through it,” freshman guard Saniya Rivers said.
She said she promised her team at the start of the season that she would do what was necessary “to come in and be the player that I could be to help us get what we all want, a national championship.”