This week was too much.
The South Carolina men’s team opened the school’s game roster last Wednesday with a shocking victory over a qualifying Florida team … but was slaughtered by the state of Mississippi.
The South Carolina women’s team opened their week with a rout at Auburn (allowing 18 points in the first half!) … but LOST a game at UConn where, for the first time in recent memory, I honestly thought I didn’t play very well.
The USC may have won the rebound battle, but it had a case of rotation bug (21 to be exact) and did not register a single point of rapid interruption. In addition, this may have been the most lost that I’ve seen offensively in a long time. Despite having the chance to win at the end of the regulation, I felt that they acted as the second best team on the court.
So, each team had a high and a low this week.
While the women’s casualty is quite understandable because, hey, you should lose to the best school in the country, the men’s casualty has almost erased all the positives we saw in the victory against Florida.
There are good losses and bad losses, but the game against the state of Mississippi was a * bad * loss.
Things were difficult in the second half, but not for long. After the Gamecocks reduced the Mississippi State leadership to one with 13:44 remaining in the second half, the Bulldogs started a 13-3 run and the game has not been competitive since.
USC hit 31.1%, the lowest of the season, and made just 5 of 25 attempts behind the hoop. Right when they took a step forward, they took two steps back.
Anyway, this was a week harder to find players to recognize than normal. Enjoy!
Player of the week: Aliyah Boston
I could really point out something negative to say about almost every male and female team, and that includes Aliyah Boston, but I still believe that she had the best performance of all last week.
Yes, she missed a few strokes at the end of the regulation against UConn who would have won the game for the Cocks and her three point attempt at the end of the OT was a little questionable, but I still believe her game was a big role to learn by that they were around in the end.
His recovery widened his holdings and partially led the USC to 17 points of second chance in that competition.
If the Cocks did not control the boards as much as they did, the UConn game would not have been so difficult.
Boston added another double-double to its collection as well.
Runner-up: AJ Lawson
For lack of a better option, I will act as if his performance against the state of Mississippi did not exist and give him the runner-up because of the Florida game.
In simple terms, he did the heavy lifting in winning against a qualified Florida team and helped them secure the voice acting.
Being more or less the exclusive source of attack in the first half, Lawson led offensively in Florida, finishing with 22 points out of 9 out of 16 shots, although it cooled off a little towards the end of the game and let his teammates take over.
Most surprisingly, he finished with the most rebounds on the team, with eight, so he was producing in areas other than the scoring area.
I will stop with the compliments now because it still fired 31% against the state of Mississippi.
Honorable Mention: Victaria Saxton
She is a dog, a fighter, and she showed it on Monday night.
When the team needed a rebound, she wanted more than anyone on the court.
When the team needed her to make a move, she stepped forward.
Saxton also made a clutch basket at the end of regulation, when the Cocks went on an 8-0 run to take a four point lead with just under three minutes to go.
She does the dirty work for this team and simply deserves all the credit in the world.