When the No. 1 South Carolina women’s basketball team (19-0, 7-0) takes the court Thursday night against Alabama (12-10, 1-6), the Gamecocks will be coming off arguably their best performance of the year.
Before Monday night’s 79-61 win over No. 12 Texas A&M, South Carolina had beaten several Top-25 opponents earlier in the season, but had yet to dominate a team as talented as the Aggies.
Although the Gamecocks wouldn’t pull away from Texas A&M until halfway through the second half, head coach Dawn Staley’s team showed just how talented it is by dominating several, if not all facets of the game.
South Carolina’s depth stood out as the Gamecock bench outscored Texas A&M’s 41-8 while a mixture of young and veteran players contributed.
Freshman power forward A’ja Wilson led South Carolina with 18 points, while veteran junior shooting guard Tiffany Mitchell added 16.
Sophomore center Alaina Coates and senior power forward Aleighsa Welch also dominated in the paint. Coates posted a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds while Welch scored 12 points while recording seven boards.
As a team, South Carolina shot 49 percent from the field.
The Gamecocks also kept up the pressure on defense, forcing Texas A&M into 16 turnovers.
Overall, Staley was very pleased with her team’s performance.
“I thought we came out just really focused at the task at hand,” Staley said. “Of course, we want to go inside and I thought we did that. I thought Tiffany Mitchell just played with an incredible amount of focus on both sides of the ball.”
However, with the Crimson Tide coming to the Colonial Life Arena, the Gamecocks had little time to savor Monday’s victory.
But if South Carolina can play the way it did the last time it faced Alabama, the Gamecocks will have little to worry about.
That’s because Alabama allowed the Gamecocks to score 100 plus points in a regular-season SEC game for the first time earlier in the month as South Carolina won 102-59 in Tuscaloosa.
The Gamecocks shot a season-high 63.8 percent in that game and Coates, one of six South Carolina players to score in double-digits against the Crimson Tide, led with 20 points.
Since Staley took over at South Carolina at the beginning of the 2008-2009 season, her teams are a perfect 10-0 against Alabama.
Still, Staley has been reiterating to her team that just because the Gamecocks won the last time they faced Alabama, it doesn’t mean a similar result will automatically reduplicate itself.
“We have to prep, we have to make sure because they’re playing different basketball now,” Staley said. “They’re playing a little bit more energized.”
Alabama is looking to finish the 2014-2015 season with a winning record for the first time since the 2010-2011 season, but the Crimson Tide is just 1-6 in conference play.
One bright spot for Alabama has been the play of sophomore forward Ashley Williams. The Covington, GA native is averaging a team-high 13.6 points per game.
Williams scored 10 points in Alabama’s prior loss to South Carolina.