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

South Carolina women’s basketball tries to start a new home winning streak on Thursday night against Arkansas. Find out how to watch and what to watch for.

1. Get back on track
South Carolina responded to the UCLA loss by thrashing Iowa State 76-36. Then it rebounded from the Texas loss with a 38-point rout of Florida. Poor Arkansas.

“Had two good days of practice, just need to get back, and we need a game to get back to just playing our style of play and focusing and playing Gamecock women’s basketball style of play,” Dawn Staley said. “It’s simple, we’ve just got to apply it.”

South Carolina won’t be able to prove much against Arkansas – the Razorbacks are pretty bad this season. But it can lay the groundwork for a strong finish to the season and hopefully another long tournament run.

2. That “isn’t just about basketball”
Staley raised some eyebrows on Sunday when she said of the loss to UConn, “When you lose like this there’s something else going on that isn’t just about basketball.”

She didn’t elaborate, and we’ve all wondered what she meant by that. Are there locker room issues? A lack of focus? Not listening to coaches? Instead of speculating, I asked Staley on Wednesday what she meant.

“I did? (Yes.) I think some things may not be about basketball, some things are just – and I don’t know what they are, I don’t know what it is, I’m just throwing it out there. The team that took the floor against UConn really wasn’t our team, so as a coach, you have a tendency to think, hey, it ain’t just about basketball, what is it about? We had a come-to-Jesus meeting if you will. We apologized for our performances, and we moved on. We’re not gonna stay stuck in those spaces. I’m not gonna look for things. I’m just gonna call it what it is. Players have to step up, coaches have to step up, and if we want to accomplish the goals that we have out there, it’s gonna take a collective effort.”

Win tickets to Senior Day, South Carolina-Kentucky women’s basketball game

3. Three-point defense
South Carolina’s three-point defense was shockingly bad against UConn. The Huskies ran to the three-point in transition and took quick threes before the defense could get set, making 13-28.

Arkansas will provide a good test of whether South Carolina has fixed its defense because the Razorbacks also want to take threes early in the shot clock. They just aren’t very good at it (30.3%).

The strangest part about South Carolina’s performance against UConn is that the Huskies were essentially running the Arkansas offense, and South Carolina mastered defending that several years ago.

“It was our transition D that killed us, and that was from taking bad shots and creating an imbalance on the defensive side. When we were locked into the game plan, from an offensive standpoint and a defensive standpoint, we were pretty good,” Staley said. “We can handle the threes in half-court that they made, it’s all transition. The easy buckets, it was rebounding. That’s what gutted us, transition and rebounds.”

4. Availability Report
Ashlyn Watkins is out for South Carolina. 

Kiki Smith has been out with an ankle injury for Arkansas but is listed as Probable. Carly Keats is also Probable.

5. Scouting the Razorbacks
Arkansas has won a lot of games using Mike Neighbors’ run-and-shoot system, but when you can’t shoot, it’s a disaster.

The Razorbacks are allowing 77.5 points per game and scoring just 68.4. They are shooting under 40% as a team. Those Chelsea Dungee teams are a distant memory.

Izzy Higginbottom is averaging 24.1 points, fifth in the country, on 44.4% shooting. Her best attribute is drawing fouls, and she is third in the country in free throw attempts (8.1 per game, shooting 90.4%). But it’s pretty easy to see the problem: Higginbottom is a one-woman team. She is scoring over a third of Arkansas’ points.

Kiki Smith is the only other player averaging double figures (10.5 points), and she hasn’t played since January 26 due to an ankle injury.

The Ws
Who: No. 6 South Carolina (23-3, 11-1) vs. Arkansas (9-18, 2-10)
When: 7 p.m. EST, Thursday, Feb. 20
Where: Colonial Life Arena, Columbia, S.C.
Watch: SEC Network

Discuss South Carolina women’s basketball on The Insiders Forum!