South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley had a question that bothered her this off-season: Can good players win a championship?
Staley, in his 13th year with the program, will have the chance to find out with his Gamecocks ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25 entering the season. They are also expected to win the Southeast Conference title for what would be the sixth time in eight years.
Staley appreciates the skill, intelligence and relentless preparation of his best players, such as Aliyah Boston and Zia Cooke, both All-SEC preseason teams. Still, there is that question of temper that bothers Staley.
“They all have a killer mentality, but they are super cool,” said Staley. “It almost bothers me how cool they are.”
Staley’s “cool” team dominated during the 2019-20 season, reaching a record 32-1, winning SEC regular season and tournament titles and climbing to first place before the coronavirus closed sports before that the NCAA tournament could drop out. Gamecocks will start 2020-21 where they left off, but this time being No. 1 in the country represents the first time – they were never at the top in the AP Top 25 preseason.
To finish first in the SEC, South Carolina will once again have to hold on to several talented teams looking to disrupt the Gamecocks’ championship streak. And, as usual, the SEC is likely to have an impact on the search for the national championship.
Mississippi State Number 6, which achieved three consecutive Final Fours and won the SEC title in 2019, could be South Carolina’s biggest opponent despite the loss of energetic coach Vic Schafer, who left for Texas last spring . His replacement in Starkville is Nikki McCray-Penson, most recently the Old Dominion coach, but an assistant to Staley for a decade (2008-17) and a former Tennessee playmaker.
There are three other SEC teams in AP Top 25: No. 11 Kentucky, No. 13 Texas A&M at No. 13 and No. 14 Arkansas.
Staley acknowledged that his last team lost part of their “punch” to point guard Tyasha Harris and striker Mikiah Herbert Harrigan, both chosen in the most recent WNBA draft. They were freshmen on the South Carolina national championship team in 2017 and started a total of 189 games in their time with the Gamecocks. His experience and leadership will be the most difficult things to replace and will only come with time, said Staley.
Texas transfers Destiny Littleton, a junior guard in a red shirt, returns to the courthouse in South Carolina after a year off due to NCAA requirements, with part of that time spent rehabilitating an ankle injury.
The 6-foot-5 Boston was second in scoring (12.5 points per game) for Gamecocks and led them in rebounds (9.4 per game) and blocks (81 in total) as a freshman in 2019-20. She is especially looking forward to the games starting because last season had an unsatisfactory ending, despite the Gamecocks having won their last 26 games before the close.
“It happened so abruptly,” said Boston.
She understood why, of course, and spent the off-season improving her external shot and strength and aggression.
As far as good, Boston said to wait until the action starts: “We are all bringing in this year.”
SEC coaches chose South Carolina to finish first, with the predicted runner-up Kentucky, which is led by preseason player Rhyne Howard, a former head of Bradley Central High School in Cleveland, Tennessee. The junior point guard recently became the first AP All-American of the program’s preseason and was an All-American last season.
Texas A&M was chosen to finish third, with Arkansas and Mississippi State completing the top five. Tennessee, who turned 21-10 last season on ex-player Kellie Harper’s debut as a coach, was chosen sixth, with LSU, Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Ole Miss, Florida, Vanderbilt and Auburn completing the order.
Boston and Howard were joined in the preseason by the first All-SEC team coaches by Rennia Davis (Tennessee), Chelsea Dungee (Arkansas), Rickea Jackson (State of Mississippi), N’dea Jones (Texas A&M), Khayla Pointer (LSU ) and exclusive Thompson (Auburn).
Joining South Carolina Cooke on the second team were Shakira Austin (Ole Miss), Aijha Blackwell (Missouri), Lavender Briggs (Florida), Jessika Carter (State of Mississippi), Destiny Slocum (Arkansas), Jasmine Walker (Alabama) ) and Kayla Wells (Texas A&M).
While McCray-Penson had a few months to settle in Mississippi, which was 27-6 and reached the SEC tournament title last season, another former Lady Vols highlight experienced a sudden rise in the SEC last week. When longtime Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell announced that he was stepping down for health reasons, assistant Kyra Elzy was promoted to interim coach.
The Kentucky native was already on her second stint as assistant chief technician with the Wildcats – she held the same title in Tennessee and was also an assistant in Kansas and Western Kentucky – before being pushed into an even bigger role, and received a strong endorsement by sports director Mitch Barnhart. She will try to increase what was a good race under Mitchell, whose team was 22-8 last season.
“We are ready to enjoy the fruits of her work and how prepared she is,” said Barnhart of Elzy. “We are looking forward to taking care of her.”
In Knoxville, Harper’s team will try to counter their midpack prediction and what is starting to become a disturbing trend for Tennessee fans: Lady Vols was nowhere in the AP preseason’s Top 25 for the second year in a row .
When that happened last fall, the show ended a 42-year run starting the season in the ranking. While Tennessee tied for third in the SEC ranking in Harper’s debut season, it was not enough to garner the votes needed to qualify in this year’s first vote.