South Carolina women's basketball: Five Things to Watch - Arkansas

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The South Carolina women’s basketball team begins its quest for a third consecutive SEC Tournament Championship on Friday.

1. It just means more

South Carolina has won six of the past seven tournaments and is the favorite to make it seven of eight. That would be a streak unmatched in conference history, even by Tennessee. If you want to know what the SEC Tournament means to South Carolina, go back to the one season they didn’t win. In 2019 Arkansas knocked South Carolina out in the quarterfinals, an embarrassing one-and-done at the Gamecocks’ home away from home in Greenville.

“The message to this team and everybody is it’s a little South Carolina fatigue,” Dawn Staley said angrily. “We’ll be back. We’ll be back. We’ll be back. We’ll be back to Greenville, South Carolina. Hopefully we won’t end our tournament prematurely.”

They were back in a big way in 2020, with a dominant tournament in which they were barely challenged. Things were closer last season, but on Sunday it was once again the Gamecocks celebrating. They are the favorites again this season, and Staley explained the Gamecocks’ mentality as they headed to Nashville.

“This is the time of the year where you get to this point and you want more,” she said. “You have a greediness about it. I do feel like our players are locked in and focused on playing their best basketball and winning as many championships as possible. When we put this team together we felt like it could be something super special if everybody had buy-in. The buy-in is there. The regular-season championship is there, and I’m sure they want to check off some other stuff. We always like winning the SEC Tournament Championship. We just feel like playing in our league and winning the regular season and winning the tournament will put you in a prime position to compete and win national championships. That’s what we’re going to continue to hang our hats on.”

A’ja Wilson is the only four-year player in league history to go undefeated in the SEC Tournament. This season’s juniors (Aliyah Boston, Zia Cooke, Brea Beal, and Olivia Thompson) are halfway there. 

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2. Henny Time

The SEC Tournament has become a showcase for Destanni Henderson for the last two seasons. Henderson was named to the All-Tournament teams both years, and she played all but 11 minutes of the three games last season.

Henderson’s numbers have taken a big jump. If you omit that 2019 game when she only played eight minutes as a freshman reserve, Henderson is averaging 14.7 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 4.5 assists in SEC tournament games. That’s a significant jump from her career averages of 9.3 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 3.3 assists. 

South Carolina got a sneak peek of Tournament Henny in the season finale against Ole Miss. Henderson tied her career-high with 23 points and tied her season-high with eight assists. Staley explained what made Henderson successful against Ole Miss and in the tournament.

“I like her being aggressive,” Staley said. “I like her putting people back on their heels and being super aggressive. That has a defense thinking whether she’s going to go, whether she’s going to drive and kick it out. I thought she played the perfect game in being aggressive.”

3. Appreciating Brea Beal

Brea Beal was left off the SEC All-Defense team the past two seasons, but it seemed like this might finally be the year she got the recognition she deserves. When Beal was snubbed by the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Watch List, it started a national conversation about Beal’s defensive prowess. It still wasn’t enough to get her on the all-defense team, so Staley is taking matters into her own hands. She’s re-awarding her Coach of the Year Award, the fifth of her career.

“I’m going to give the award to Brea Beal,” Staley said. “I’m going to give the plaque or whatever it is to Brea Beal because she always seems to be the person that misses out on what she does so well for us. Maybe I’ll get a little small placard to place on it so she can really understand that although she wasn’t one of the players that was on the all-defensive team she certainly is and we’re glad to have her on our team. I want her to take some hardware away.”

Staley added that she wishes she could cut the award in half and give the other half to Victaria Saxton, another unsung hero.

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4. Double focus

South Carolina flew to Nashville Wednesday, before knowing who it would play Friday. Staley joked that she had to take scouting reports for 12 different teams, just to be prepared. The coaches are preparing for every potential opponent and every potential circumstance so the players can focus on one game at a time.

“You’re looking ahead a lot from a coaching staff standpoint, but you’re also locked in with your players to make sure that their only worry is the task in front of them,” Staley said.

There isn’t a lot of time for detailed game plans and no practices to implement new ideas, so teams are who they are (to paraphrase Dennis Green). That’s why, Staley believes, you test your team throughout the season. The lessons from those games prepare you for the postseason.

“We’ve played the best teams in the country and we’ve fared well,” Staley said. “We’ve got to rely on that and rely on the habits that we’ve created and the winning ways that we’ve created and not dwell on what happened in the past.”

5. Scouting the Razorbacks

South Carolina fans really wanted a revenge game against Missouri, and truthfully the team probably would have welcomed it too. But Arkansas came back from a nine-point deficit to force overtime and then pulled away for a 61-52 win. 

Arkansas only used seven players against Missouri. Two, Amber Ramirez and Sarah Goforth, played the entire game, and a third, Makayla Daniels, only sat for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, South Carolina was shooting interviews and photos for the broadcast, picking up their gift bags, and watching Arkansas. Advantage Gamecocks. 

Arkansas coach Mike Neighbors felt that winning Thursday’s game was so important for Arkansas’ tournament resume that he was willing to shorten the bench even if it hurts Arkansas’ chances Friday. He said the training staff is the most important part of the team Thursday, and then they’ll try to jump on South Carolina early Friday. 

“I think it’s our advantage in the first half tomorrow having played today,” he said. ”Sometimes being that team that’s been sitting, sometimes – I’m not saying all the time – sometimes it’s your advantage in the first half. So we have to be ready to take advantage of that.”

South Carolina has less than 24 hours to prepare for the Razorbacks, but fortunately, there is a similarity in how Arkansas and Missouri played South Carolina that the Gamecocks can try to take advantage of. Both teams left Beal unguarded to have an extra defender on South Carolina’s post players. Armed with that knowledge, South Carolina is planning to get Beal involved early to take advantage. 

“They’re not going to play her,” Staley said. “We’re going to put her in positions where they have to play her. If that’s closer to the basket, (or) if they want to not guard her when she’s outside for three.”

The Ws

• Who: #1 South Carolina (27-1, 15-1) vs Arkansas (17-12, 7-9)
• When: 1:00 pm eastern, Friday, March 4
• Where: Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, TN
• Watch: SEC Network

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