South Carolina hosts a Valentine’s Day date with LSU at noon.
1. Pink Game
Sunday’s game is South Carolina’s annual pink game to raise awareness for finding a cure for and celebrating survivors of breast cancer. The team will wear pink accessories. In the past, LSU has worn pink uniforms as the opponent for the pink game.
South Carolina has not worn pink uniforms in several years. Even when they last wore them, they were a previous design that didn’t match the Gamecocks then-current design.
2. Going small
Three weeks ago in Baton Rouge, South Carolina trailed LSU at halftime and had to eke out a 69-65 win. Dawn Staley mad two critical adjustments. First, at halftime she swapped Destanni Henderson and Zia Cooke, making Cooke the primary ball-handler and giving Henderson more opportunities to attack the LSU zone from the wings. Then, going into the fourth quarter, Staley inserted LeLe Grissett at power forward. The move made South Carolina smaller but faster and more athletic, allowing South Carolina to play faster and take LSU out of its zone defense.
Grissett had eight points and three assists in the fourth quarter. All four of her baskets came in transition, and she fed Cooke for another transition layup. After scoring just 12 fast break points in the first three quarters, South Carolina scored 18 in the fourth quarter.
Grissett has seen more playing time at the four since then, mostly as a change of pace for a few minutes or a counter when opponents go small.
“She gives us great comfort in knowing that who we have coming in off the bench gives us a totally different look,” Staley said.
Grissett will get another shot at disrupting LSU Sunday, but Staley hopes that the regular rotation won’t dig a whole like it did last time.
“We’ll probably put that lineup out there again,” Staley said, “but hopefully it doesn’t take LeLe tearing off her shirt and seeing that “S” on her chest to bail us out. Hopefully we can play a little bit quicker that we played.”
3. Streaking
A win Sunday would be South Carolina’s 31st straight SEC win, including the SEC tournament. That would tie South Carolina with Tennessee for the second-longest streak in league history. The longest streak is 36 games, also by Tennessee, from 2010-12. And guess who South Carolina plays Thursday? The Lady Vols.
Excluding the SEC Tournament, South Carolina has won 27 straight regular season games, the fifth-longest streak in league history. South Carolina has a way to go to get to the longest streak, which was 42 games, set twice by Tennessee.
And speaking of streaks, South Carolina has won 11 consecutive games against LSU. That is tied for the sixth-longest winning streak over an SEC foe in program history. South Carolina currently has won 18 straight over Alabama, 13 straight over Florida, Georgia, and Vanderbilt, 12 straight over Ole Miss, and 11 straight over Auburn. All are current streaks. Among inactive streaks, South Carolina once won 11 straight over Mississippi State and 10 straight over Arkansas.
4. Stay safe
Staley was asked about the NCAA Tournament, and she commented that there are probably 10 teams that could win.
“I don’t even think the best team will probably win the national championship,” Staley said. “The team that’s able to navigate COVID the best will probably win the national championship. I just hope it doesn’t come down to any team not being able to compete because of COVID. We’re in the danger zone now where we can’t have any positives.”
Staley joked that she knows players need some “fresh air” and “retail therapy,” as she put it, but they are careful to follow safety protocols. She then told a revealing story about one of South Carolina’s practice players, and the big-picture commitment the Gamecocks have to competing for a championship.
“I thought this was really, really responsible,” Staley said. “One of our players called me last week and was like, we’re following one of the practice guys on social media and he’s out partying, so we don’t want him to come to practice. And that’s serious. So we made the call to say, yo, you’ve got to sit this week out. And he was so apologetic. He was like, I haven’t been out either semester, and he did have his mask on. That’s where our players are. They don’t want anybody - he is a part of our family, he’s been with us all season long - yet he made the mistake of being around too many people, being on social media. That’s the mentality of our players. They don’t want anybody to get in their way of at least participating in the NCAA tournament.”
5. Scouting the Tigers
LSU is a very familiar commodity at this point. South Carolina knows very well that the Tigers will try to slow the pace and set up their zone defense. But both teams are starting to look ahead to March.
Three weeks ago when these two met, LSU was one of the real surprises of the early conference season, having handed Texas A&M its first loss. But the bloom is off the rose a bit. LSU is coming off a 73-66 overtime loss to Florida that dropped the Tigers to 8-9 overall and 6-5 in the SEC. LSU has also fallen to Charlie Creme’s first four out and has a brutal four-game stretch ahead: South Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Mississippi State. LSU will have to upset somebody to keep its tournament hopes alive.
South Carolina’s remaining schedule isn’t any easier, with Tennessee, Kentucky, Ole Miss, and a trip to Texas A&M that could decide the SEC title. But while the Tigers are playing for their tournament lives, South Carolina is fine-tuning itself to hopefully make a deep run. South Carolina is using the loss to UConn
“They’re a little bit more focused, they pay attention to detail. Also for us coaches it shapes what we need to be doing and concentrating on,” Staley said. “I don’t think we were great in late game situations, and we really haven’t had a lot of games that allowed us to work on those things.”
The Ws
Who: #1 South Carolina (16-2, 11-0) vs LSU (8-9, 6-5)
When: Sunday, February 14, noon
Where: Colonial Life Arena
Watch: SEC Network
