In the final minute of play in the first half with South Carolina women's basketball already comfortably leading Hampton, Kamilla Cardoso was standing under the baseline fighting through traffic. She passed the ball around her defender to a cutting Aliyah Boston, who caught the pass in stride and drove through the paint.
But as the reigning National Player of the Year went up for her shot, a hard foul took her down.
Boston was slow to get up, stayed in the game to attempt her two free throws and then immedietely went down the tunnel at the next dead ball with 39 seconds left in the first half.
No. 1 South Carolina defeated Hampton 85-38 to improve to 6-0 on the season behind double-digit scoring performances from Ashlyn Watkins, Bree Hall and Cardoso, but Boston's injury status will be the talking point of the afternoon and coming days.
She did not return to the game, and was wearing a boot on her right foot when she re-appeared on the bench late in the third quarter.
"Questionable," head coach Dawn Staley said when asked about Boston's status. "She's going to get it looked at it tomorrow, and then we'll get some feedback from our doctor. Our doctor wasn't too, too concerned, but we just want to be on the safe side."
Before her injury, everything was going according to plan in the team's first home game since opening night. Zia Cooke scored nine of the team's first 12 points as part of an early 20-0 run for the Gamecocks. Hampton scored the first points of the afternoon to take a 2-0 lead, but did not knock down a field goal the remainder of the first quarter as South Carolina used its huge size advantage to total up a 16-3 rebounding advantage in the first quarter.
South Carolina led by as many as 25 points in the second quarter before Boston went down, but without the team's superstar leader and with the outcome well in hand, the energy levels dropped early in the third quarter. Hampton actually opened the second half on a 6-0 run, prompting a full line change from Staley and she brought five new players in to try to get some juice back on the floor and in the building.
"I let the five that started the third quarter go for a few minutes and then things didn't seem like they would clean up," Staley said. "It seemed a little murky out there. I know what the five that we put out there do every day in practice. They bring energy, they bring effort. They don't always bring execution, but we weren't getting execution. We needed the energy and the effort, and they did that. I thought they ran around defensively and created some offense from our defense. We rebounded and pushed the ball down the floor. Those were some of the things we didn't do with our first unit."
The five fresh faces who came in at the 6:19 mark of the third quarter were Watkins, Hall, Cardoso, Raven Johnson aond Talaysia Cooper. The quintet paid immediate dividends with a 19-3 run. Watkins followed on from her strong performances on the recent four-game raod trip with 14 points in another solid effort, and Cardoso responded after not playing at all against Cal Poly with 11 points, her third double-digit game of the season.
Cooper played her season-high in minutes with 20 minutes of action, scoring nine points with seven rebounds and two assists while providing a badly needed jolt of lightning in the second half with her explosiveness in transition. Seven of her nine points came in the fourth quarter, which she played every second of. Sania Feagin also saw some action after not playing in the Cal Poly game, playing 10 minutes and scoring five points.
"I think it's magical to have a team like that," senior forward Laeticia Amihere said after playing 15 minutes off the bench and scoring seven of the 65 South Carolina bench points. "Really our freshmen are doing a great job. Ash, she almost got a double-double. It's effortless for her. Coop, she did a great job. We're kind of short on point guards, and she's picking that up for the last group. It's been great to see that and everybody contributing."
Much stiffer competition will be traveling to Columbia soon, with the 7-0 and nationally ranked UCLA Bruins next on the docket Tuesday night at Colonial Life Arena.
But whether Boston is able to go or not, a bench unit playing at this level gives South Carolina a chance to beat anybody.
