South Carolina women's basketball: Aliyah Boston's journey to redemption

South Carolina Women’s Basketball: News • Recruiting • Schedule • Roster • Stats • SEC • Polls • Scholarships

“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition…” — ABC’s Wide World of Sports

Aliyah Boston might not have heard that phrase – Wide World of Sports went off the air three years before she was even born – and it’s even less likely she knows who Vinko Bogataj is, but they have a common link. Bogataj is the skier whose claim to fame is that his crash represented the agony of defeat. For the past year, Aliyah’s sobbing reaction to missing a game-winning shot in the Final Four has been a part of every tournament promo. 

It has been a constant reminder of how close she came to playing for a national championship last year – the “margin of error” Dawn Staley has harped on ever since. The agony of defeat was real. It was the second time that season she missed a game-winning basket, which made the feeling even worse.

“She looked at her dad. I was standing next to him but I knew she wasn’t looking at me,” Aliyah’s mother Cleone recalled. “She said, ‘Dad, again!’ Because the one other loss they had was similar, the UConn game. She said, ‘Dad, again.’ She said that to him from on the court. Maybe everyone couldn’t read her lips or didn’t catch it, but they caught the tears. It broke my heart.”

“Me, I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t because she had to go through that to understand what it feels like,” her father Al said. “As much as I wanted to hug her, I couldn’t because of the pandemic.”

Aliyah didn’t want to feel that pain again. Last season she would get tired during games, and sometimes she would be so winded from fighting for low post position, she would have to pass the ball away as soon as she got it. So she improved her conditioning. She needed more ways to score in the post, so she sought out NBA Hall of Famer Tim Duncan, another Virgin Islander, for help.

“He just showed me some different moves,” she said. “Just working a lot on just repetition and getting my shots up and different post moves and just working on reading the defense.”

BE DOMINANT

Aliyah did everything she could think of to get better, to avoid another defeat. But something still wasn’t right. Through South Carolina’s first three games she was averaging just 9.3 points and 5.3 rebounds. She broke out with 23 points and seven rebounds in the fourth game, the beginning of a three-game trip to the Bahamas. Dawn Staley pulled her aside after the game and gave her some tough love.

“Coach Staley was like, you’re not being dominant. This is not the Aliyah Boston that we’re expecting, we’re looking for,” Aliyah recalled. “It just flipped a switch. I’m glad she said something because it got me upset. I’m was like, I’m doing fine, like I’m playing good. That’s what happening in my head. But she was able to point it out, and the next game I just came out and I was like, you know what? I’m not going to be denied. I’m going go crash the boards. I’m going to do what my team needs me to do.”

Aliyah had 16 points and eight rebounds in a blowout of Oregon, and then had a day to prepare for a showdown with UConn, a 1 vs 2 game that was so rare the AP delayed releasing its poll for a day, waiting on the result. And she dominated. She had 22 points and 15 rebounds as South Carolina won going away. Aliyah’s season began in earnest that early afternoon on November 22. Staley made sure of it.

“Do I think she is the best player? 22 points 15 rebounds in a big-ass game,” she said, before walking out of the press conference. 

It was a callback to a conversation that helped bring Aliyah to South Carolina in the first place. Everyone in the country wanted Aliyah, but Staley knew, “you recruit the whole family” with Aliyah. Al and Cleone helped Aliyah decide on the criteria her future school needed to meet, and South Carolina checked the boxes, as Staley said. But she still had to convince them that South Carolina was the right place. It was an early form of that same tough love that won over the Bostons.

“She said, ‘Aliyah is good, but I can’t promise you that she’ll be a starter on this team. But if she works hard she’ll be a starter.’ And from that I respected her,” Al said.

THE STREAK

Two games after UConn Aliyah went a perfect 13-13 from the floor and scored a career-high 29 points to go with 14 rebounds. Nobody knew it at the time, but she would be another four months before she held without a double-double.

“She would have wanted to win but it made her just continue to push, to set new goals for herself and for her team, and to work as hard as she has to work towards accomplishing that goal,” Cleone said. “This year speaks for itself.”

By February, Aliyah was the clear frontrunner for national player of the year. A made-for-TV pushback followed in February that promoted Caitlin Clark, but there was never really any doubt. She has swept every award, including Defensive Player of the Year, the first player to ever do so.

“Coming into this year I said in the back of my mind I wanted to change the narrative this year about women’s basketball,” Aliyah said after receiving the AP player of the year trophy. “For me to get this award means a lot and I can’t wait to do more in the future.”

She elevated her play to another level in the postseason. Aliyah is averaging 18.0 points and 15.0 rebounds in the NCAA Tournament. She had 28 points and 22 rebounds against North Carolina, scoring all 13 of South Carolina’s points in the fourth quarter. She had 19 and seven against Creighton, ending her double-double streak, but only because she made sure the Gamecocks took care of the Bluejays early on. That put South Carolina back in the Final Four, the source of all the heartache a year ago. Aliyah insisted she doesn’t think about that missed layup anymore.

“No, I didn’t replay any of that,” she said. “I think part of growing up and maturing is being able to move on. So that happened last season, but that’s not something that I can continue to think about or else there wouldn’t be any progress. So I’ve let go of that since last season and we’ve moved on.”

She made sure there would be no need for a game-winning basket, putting up 23 points, 18 rebounds, and four assists as South Carolina won comfortably, allowing Boston to take a curtain call with two minutes left.

Aliyah finally admitted what she earlier denied: she needed to get over that semifinal loss.

“This year we knew that were going to be tested and this is the hump that we need to get over,” she said. “And we got over that tonight and we’re on to the National Championship game.”

REDEMPTION

Aliyah is already a hero in the Virgin Islands. Her ever-changing colored braids are iconic. ESPN created a graphic breaking down South Carolina’s record by hair color. She has always liked bright colors, from her shoes to her clothes and now to her hair (“You could see her coming before you heard her,” Cleone said). When Aliyah showed up for the Tennessee game with orange braids, the faux pas nearly overshadowed the game. Those braids wouldn’t last long.

“It costs me every time,” Al shrugged. “She just calls and says, ‘Dad it’s time to do it.’”

A fourth-grade student in the Virgin Islands had a history assignment: a report on someone from the Virgin Islands who inspires her. She picked Aliyah and dyed the tips of her hair blue and tried to mimic a picture of Aliyah tossing her braids. Aliyah has started making arrangements to meet the family this summer.

“That is the hope and dream. We have a lot of talented kids at home. They don’t always get this opportunity,” Cleone said. “We’re hoping that if nothing else this shines a light for everyone that sees Aliyah to know that there are more Aliyahs on the Virgin Islands.”

There’s still one more thing on Aliyah’s to-do list, and it’s the only one that matters.

“I came to South Carolina to bring a National Championship back home to Columbia, and so that’s the goal,” she said.

Then her place in the montage can move from the agony of defeat part of the montage to the thrill of victory.