South Carolina visits Arkansas Thursday night for a key SEC game.

Aliyah Boston will be a game-time decision Thursday after injuring her foot against Tennessee. Dawn Staley continues to be coy about exactly what the injury is, but said after the Tennessee game that Boston could have gone back in the game if they needed her.

South Carolina will once again be without Laeticia Amihere, who was named to the Team Canada Senior Women’s National team and will be competing in the Olympic qualifying tournament in Belgium. If Boston can’t play, that basically leaves the list of post players at one: Victaria Saxton.

Saxton set her career highs of 19 points and nine rebounds against Arkansas last season, and had four points in just 11 minutes earlier this season. She missed the tournament loss to Arkansas last season, and Staley is confident Saxton can handle the job.

“We’ve got V,” she said. “V’s done well against Arkansas. When we missed her we lost in the SEC tournament. We have her, and if she’s got to play a whole lot of minutes, we’re comfortable with that.”

In the first meeting this season, Boston had 19 points, 25 rebounds, and five blocks against Arkansas’ small-ball lineup. Arkansas has nobody that can match her size and strength in the middle, so if Boston can’t go, South Carolina loses a major advantage.

The flip side is, if South Carolina had to pick a game to be undersized, this is the one to pick. South Carolina could go small with Saxton or Mikiah Herbert Harrigan at the five and slide Brea Beal or LeLe Grissett over to the four and still be bigger than Arkansas. In fact, Beal has looked very comfortable at the four in limited chances, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see her get a look there.

2. More honors and housekeeping

In case you missed it, on Monday Boston and Tysha Harris were named to the Wooden Award late season top 20. The Wooden Award is one of the major player of the year awards.

On Tuesday South Carolina announced the dates for the 2020 Dawn Staley camps. You can read more HERE.

Also on Tuesday, South Carolina announced fan bus trips for the SEC Tournament in Greenville. The buses will run for as many rounds as South Carolina plays. Reservations must be made by Friday. More information can be found HERE.

3. Top 16 reactions

On Monday the selection committee revealed the first of two top 16 seed reports. South Carolina got the top overall seed, and was put in the Greenville region with #2 NC State, #3 UCLA, and #4 Iowa. It’s important to remember that this is a snapshot, not a projection, and the seeds can and will change over the next six weeks. A few observations:

- The committee loves the Pac 12, with five teams, although nobody can blame them. The teams (Arizona over Arizona State?) and the seeds (UCLA a 3?) may be a little surprising, but not much.

- The committee does not love the SEC. Mississippi State is the only other team in, and at a 3. Texas A&M, Kentucky, and LSU are on the fringe of a top 16 seed, and they each are currently without their best player due to injury (in LSU’s case, Ayana Mitchell is out for the season). They could easily move up, but they need some good news on those injuries.

- Maryland as a 2 is surprising, given that a few weeks ago the Terps were on the verge of dropping out of the top 25. But the Big Ten is having a really strong year and Maryland has quietly righted the ship, winning seven straight games and moving into a three-way tie for first place.

- It’s really a moot point, since they are joining the Big East after the season, but it looks like this is the year being in the AAC has really caught up to UConn. UConn has always romped over conference opponents, but usually there were a few decent teams in there. This year, nobody else in The American has an RPI under 50, so while other teams are bolstering their resumes with quality wins over conference opponents, UConn is actually taking hits by playing teams like Tulsa and East Carolina. In the past, the committee basically gave UConn a pass because of the eye test, but with so many quality teams, and UConn no longer looking clearly better than everyone else, those days are gone.

- Which brings us back to South Carolina. Barring a total collapse, the Gamecocks would appear to have locked up a #1 seed in Greenville. If they keep winning, they will keep the top overall seed to, with quality opponents like Arkansas, UConn, Kentucky, and Texas A&M left, plus the SEC tournament. They can afford a loss, maybe even two, and keep a #1 seed.

4. Kool-Aid Watch

A funny thing happens when you earn that number one overall seed. All of a sudden, people start taking you seriously as a contender. Staley got a series of questions Wednesday about this team’s prospects in March. She joked that despite winning the 2017 national championship, that team never looked like a championship team so she still doesn’t know what one looks like.

Joking aside, Staley said there are similarities between this team and how that team finished the year and praising this team for practice habits and not “skipping steps,” or getting ahead of itself.

“We’ve had everything that we had at the end of 2017,” she said. “The concentration, the approach, the practices, the preparation. We have all of that. Now it’s really us not allowing the pressure of that to get ahead of what we’re trying to do. Just taking every game, one game.”

It’s the closest Staley has come to taking a sip of that Kool-Aid she swore she wouldn’t drink.

5. Scouting the Razorbacks

South Carolina beat Arkansas 91-82 in the first meeting this season, but the score doesn’t tell the whole story. The Gamecocks led by 25 early in the fourth quarter, but let up and almost let the Razorbacks come back. The Razorbacks were down too much to put much of a scare into the Gamecocks, but there are lessons to be learned. There are two lessons in particular: handling the Razorbacks’ press and transition defense.

“We let their press bother us a little bit, so we’ve worked at it a little bit over the last two days,” Staley said. “We anticipate them playing much like they played at the end of that game.”

The transition defense was more about focus. South Carolina did a good job of guarding the three point line for three quarters. But in the fourth quarter, South Carolina fell into normal habits, which is exactly what Arkansas wants. While most teams use the fast break to get layups, Arkansas uses the fast break to get threes. In the fourth quarter, South Carolina stopped defending the arc.

“It’s hard to slow them down,” Staley said. “You’ve got to make sure you’re contesting all the shots, we’re hopefully allowing them to two us rather than three us. We can’t retreat. We retreated in transition and played the drive when they’re going to stop and pop. We’ve got to do a much better job of making sure that we’re locked in and taking away some of their threes.”

The Ws

Who: #1 South Carolina (21-1, 9-0) at 325 Arkansas (18-4, 6-3)

When: Thursday, February 6, 8:30 pm

Where: Bud Walton Arena, Fayetteville, AR

Watch: SEC Network