Brea Beal’s selfless freshman season was initially overlooked, but now she is starting to get the recognition she deserves.
Probably nobody encapsulated South Carolina’s team-first mentality last season than Beal. As a high school player, Beal was the three-time Ms. Basketball in the state of Illinois and an All-American who averaged 26 points and 14 rebounds per game as a senior. She didn’t come close to putting up those kinds of numbers last season, averaging just 6.1 points and 5.4 rebounds and playing just over 21 minutes per game. But far from being a disappointment, that was by design.
There are only so many shots to go around, and with Mikiah Herbert Harrigan, Aliyah Boston, and Zia Cooke on the team, there weren’t many left for Beal. When the Gamecocks did run plays for her, like they did in the first Kentucky game, Beal delivered, Beal delivered, going 7-11 for a career-high 15 points. But those games were the minority, so Beal threw herself into the defensive end. She could have played more minutes, but more rest meant more energy on defense.
She eagerly took on the opponent's best wing player, and usually shut her down. Beal first established her defensive prowess against Washington State when she forced Borislava Hristova, the Cougars’ all-time leading scorer, into a tie up, a missed shot, and a turnover on the first two possessions and held her to a season-low nine points. That started a month-long stretch that saw her shut down the best players for Purdue, Duke, South Dakota, and finally Kentucky. The Kentucky game was South Carolina’s coming-out party (the infamous Kool-Aid game), and while Rhyne Howard got her numbers (28 points), Beal also forced her into six first half turnovers and most of the damage came after the game was already a blowout.
Late in the season, Beal said that Howard was the hardest player she had defended, and Staley said that Beal was unhappy that Howard scored so much. Beal always knows how many points her opponent scored, she said.
“Brea Beal is a killer,” Staley said. She added, “She’s talking a lot more,” which may come as a surprise from the stone-faced Beal.
She’s also getting recognition. Beal was left off the SEC All-Defensive team last season (a reminder that defense doesn’t show up in box scores, and a lot of people vote off stats). But she finished the season with arguably her best game, scoring 12 points and grabbing 11 rebounds against Mississippi State in the SEC title game for her first career double-double.
Over the long offseason, that performance seems to have led some national pundits to evaluate Beal’s season and her potential. They noticed the defense. They noticed the Kentucky game, the five double figure rebounding games from the wing, and the ability to get to the foul line (Beal had the fourth-most free throw attempts on the team, just three behind Boston). The tools are all there for Beal to have a huge season.
That’s why she was nominated for the Cheryl Miller Award Watch List, the award given to the nation’s best small forward. If Beal can improve her three-point shooting (she was just 28.9% from behind the arc last season) and free throw shooting (just 55.7% from the line), that should bump her offensive production into double figures. That’s without having more plays run for her, something that should happen.
She’ll also get plenty of opportunities to show off her defense. South Carolina plays Kentucky and Howard twice. There’s Iowa State and Big 12 player of the year candidate Ashley Joens, Mississippi State and Rickea Jackson, Tennessee and Rennia Davis, UConn and Christyn Williams or Evina Westbrook, Texas A&M and Destiny Pitts.
