WBB: Five Things to Watch - Kentucky

South Carolina takes on a struggling Kentucky team Thursday, but the Gamecocks will be without two key reserves.

1. Duty Calls

South Carolina will be without forward Laeticia Amihere and post Kamilla Cardos for the next two games against Kentucky and Georgia. Both players are with their senior national team competing in World Cup Qualifying Tournaments. Amihere is making her second appearance with the Canadian senior national team, following last year’s Olympics. Cardoso is making her debut for the Brazilian senior national team after an impressive showing in the AmeriCup Tournament.

Amihere and Cardoso are South Carolina’s top two reserves in scoring, rebounding, and minutes played, so losing them hurts. Even worse, both are frontcourt players so South Carolina is taking multiple hits to the same area in the rotation.

South Carolina has had a week to prepare and get players ready for an expanded role. Dawn Staley wouldn’t commit to who will pick up most of the minutes, but the options are pretty clear. Freshman Sania Feagin should get the first significant minutes of her career. She has played well in spot minutes and in blowouts, but this will be a new level of responsibility. Senior Elysa Wesolek will also have to be ready to play, and there’s a good chance South Carolina goes small with Lele Grissett or Brea Beal at the four, especially when Kentucky slides Rhyne Howard to that position.

“What we’ve been doing is trying to get some people some reps that will take the place of the two bigs that are missing,” Staley said. “Hopefully they’ll do well if their number’s called.”

The official announcement that Amihere and Cardoso would miss time only came Wednesday, so it appeared to come out of nowhere. But Cardoso was named to the team several weeks ago and Amihere missed several games as a freshman to be with team Canada. Staley made it clear she wasn’t surprised, and joked that she knew when she recruited them that they would have national team duties.

How To Watch the Qualifying Tournaments

2. “bet”

On January 25, the Naismith Trophy released its Defensive Player of the Year watch list. Aliyah Boston was on the list, obviously, because she is the best defensive player in the country. Also on the list was Howard, because she scores lots of points. Not on the list? Brea Beal.

Beal quote-retweeted the announcement with one word: “bet.” Anyone who watches South Carolina knows Beal is one of the best defenders in the country. But she doesn’t score points or block shots, the things that get attention (yes, scoring points somehow matters for a defensive award). Beal also typically guards the opposing team’s top scorer, so people who only look at box scores don’t notice that she held a 20-point scorer to 15, not the 25% shooting or seven turnovers.

I still remember how Brea Beal announced herself. It was in the Virgin Islands against Washington State. She was a freshman matched up against senior Borislava Hristova, Washington State’s all-time leading scorer. In the first two possessions, Beal forced Hristova into a jump ball, a missed shot, and a turnover. Hristova finished with just nine points on 4-15 shooting, her lowest scoring total of the season.

Beal has been a defensive force ever since, shutting down some of the best players in the game. The battles between Beal and Howard have been tremendous fun to watch. Beal has said that Howard is the best player she guards and Howard has usually gotten her points. But Beal has won every game and, other than the game in Lexington last season, Beal has generally gotten the better of Howard. Howard scored 32 in that game, but in the other games she had 28, but more turnovers than points at halftime and did most of her damage already down 30; 24 on 5-22 shooting; 12 on 2-11 shooting; and nine points on 2-14 shooting earlier this season.

There has been a noticeable difference since “bet.” In the past three games, Beal is averaging 4.7 points and 6.3 rebounds in just 20 minutes. It doesn’t look like much, and that’s why she doesn’t get defensive player of the year attention. But there’s an extra oomph in her play and she has been more aggressive and efficient.

3. Aliyah Boston Player of the Year Watch

A December slump knocked Caitlin Clark out of the player of the year conversation, but her 46 point, 10 assist showing against Michigan has her trending on social media. Her outburst came as Iowa tried to erase a 70-54 deficit after three quarters.

I wasn’t even going to address the entire Boston versus Clark debate because it reeks of argument for the sake of boredom, but Staley talked about it. She had strong praise for Clark, but said there shouldn’t be any debate. Here is her answer, lightly edited for clarity.

“I think when we look at what Aliyah has done over an entire basketball season there is no doubt. There wouldn’t even be a question mark if it was someone else, like it wasn’t a question mark last year.”

“I’m not even biased when I say what Aliyah Boston has been able to do with the type of schedule we had, what she continues to do across the board, and I don’t want to be a part of tearing another great player down. I’m just only going by historically speaking (is the best player on the best team).”

“Aliyah Boston by far, if she continues what she’s done, what she’s been doing, is women’s basketball’s national player of the year.”

4. Top 16 Reveal

At halftime of Thursday’s game the selection committee will announce its second Top 16 Reveal. South Carolina was the top overall seed in the first reveal two weeks ago, and that shouldn’t change. However, two other #1 seeds, NC State and Tennessee, have suffered losses, so there could be big changes. In the first reveal, South Carolina was in the Greensboro region with Arizona, Michigan, and Kansas State, and South Carolina should be in Greensboro again. The Top 16 is considered a snapshot of the top seeds if the tournament began today. It is not a building block for the eventual tournament seeds, nor is it based on the previous reveal.

5. Scouting the Wildcats

I recently wrote that Tennessee has the biggest question marks in the SEC, but Kentucky has a good argument there. The WIldcats’ season has been a disaster, and there really is no other way of looking at it. Some issues, like injuries, have been unavoidable, but others are self-inflicted.

Kentucky had just six available players in a loss to Vanderbilt due to injuries and suspensions. That was the nadir, but things haven’t gotten much better. Blair Green was lost for the year before the season even began. Robyn Benton has been sidelined with an ankle injury. Starters Treasure Hunt and Jazmine Massengill have each missed a game. And Dre’una Edwards was suspended for multiple games.

Rhyne Howard’s senior season wasn’t supposed to be this way. Kentucky aggressively mined the transfer portal, along with high school recruiting, to surround Howard with the talent to become a contender. Edwards was the Pac-12 freshman of the year. Massengill was a McDonald’s All-American who committed to Tennessee. Hunt was recruited by almost everyone. And yet, even before the roster attrition, it wasn’t working. 

Kentucky has the longest losing streak in the SEC and is just 1.5 games in front of Auburn for last place. Howard’s numbers are down, arguably the least impressive since her freshman season. She’s still arguably the most talented player in the SEC, and has notched a double-double in five of the last six games, but the more Kentucky becomes a one-woman show, the less competitive they become. And that’s without factoring in South Carolina’s success at limiting Howard.

“We’re approaching it like they’re one of the top teams in the league because anybody can win on any given day,” Staley said. “The moment you take your foot off the gas, that’s when a team can hurt you. For us, we’re forging forward.”

The Ws

Who: #1 South Carolina (21-1, 9-1) at Kentucky (9-10, 2-7)

When: 7:00 pm, Thursday, February 10

Where: Memorial Coliseum, Lexington, KY

Watch: ESPN