With the SEC regular season championship on the line, #5 South Carolina visits #3 Texas A&M for the regular season finale.

How rare is a winner-take-all game on the final day of the season? Since the SEC first began awarding a regular season championship with the 1985-86 season, this is believed to be the first time it has happened.

Only twice in those 36 seasons have two teams met with a share of the title on the line. In 2019, South Carolina hosted Mississippi State and would have shared the title with the Bulldogs with a win, but the Gamecocks lost and Mississippi State claimed the title outright. Before that, you have to go back to 1991. That year, Ole Miss (7-1) visited Georgia (8-0) to end the regular season. The Rebels lost the game and the Lady Bulldogs claimed the championship outright.

Texas A&M has had two games canceled: Vanderbilt and Missouri. Vanderbilt obviously won't be made up. In theory Texas A&M could try to play Missouri before the SEC Tournament starts, but with absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose, it would be shocking if that happened.

1. A Brief History of Gamecocks-Aggies

The series between South Carolina and Texas A&M has never reached rivalry status. There hasn’t been as much at stake as with Mississippi State or the mutual dislike there was with Kentucky, South Carolina’s two main rivals. Even though it only goes back ten games, that doesn’t mean there has been a lack of memorable moments over the years.

The Aggies were a season removed from winning the national championship when they joined the SEC. They brought along an unwelcome face: Kelsey Bone. Bone was the former second-ranked recruit who was supposed to be the foundation of Dawn Staley’s program. Instead there was an acrimonious split after one season. That made the first game between the two teams especially galling when Bone scored the game-winning putback and then screamed at the crowd of over 10,000 (a huge number in 2013, before it became commonplace), “This is my house!” as she left the court.

That was the last time South Carolina would lose at home for almost three years, a span of 45 games. But Texas A&M remained a thorn in South Carolina’s side. Texas A&M beat South Carolina again in the SEC Tournament that first season, and then the next season, Texas A&M spoiled South Carolina’s debut inside the top ten with an overtime victory in College Station.

South Carolina finally broke through with a win in 2015 and the Gamecocks have won seven straight. There has been plenty of drama along the way, though, with only two games decided by double-digits and five decided by a single possession. In 2017, the slumping Gamecocks visited Texas A&M having lost two of three games, a loss away from ceding the SEC title to Mississippi State, and facing the prospect of playing the Aggies without injured center Alaina Coates. What happened is Gamecock legend. Staley replaced Coates with backup point guard Bianca Cuevas-Moore. Mississippi State was upset by Kentucky, opening the door in the conference race, and then the Gamecocks upset the Aggies, and in one night the season was revitalized. They rode that undersized lineup to a sweep of the SEC titles and all the way to the National Championship.

There have been more nail-biters since that first game, but with the Aggies on the heartbreak end. In 2016, Texas A&M tied the game on a basket off a full-court pass with 0.9 second left, but Shlonte Allen, a little-used reserve who had just entered the game, thought the Aggies were still behind and intentionally fouled Khadijah Sessions, sending her to the line for the game-winning free throw. In 2018, Texas A&M had the ball twice in a tie game with less than a minute left, but then-freshman Chennedy Carter carelessly took too long walking the ball up and was called for a ten-second violation. South Carolina couldn’t score, and the rebound was tipped ahead to a wide open Danni Williams for what should have been an easy layup. But Williams couldn’t control the ball and was called for a double-dribble, and A’ja Wilson hit the game-winner with 1.1 seconds left.

The Aggies and Gamecocks have played some exciting games, but they’ve never played a game nearly as important as this one. Texas A&M won the SEC Tournament in 2013, its first season in the league, but has never won the SEC regular season title, and has never even been in contention on the final day of the season. Texas A&M won one regular season title in the Big 12 in 2007.

The Gamecocks, on the other hand, are looking for their sixth regular season title in eight seasons, and have finished at least second every year since the 2013-14 season, losing just 13 games in that span. The Gamecocks have also captured five tournament championships.

The game also matters for NCAA Tournament seeding. The winner would likely clinch a one seed, while the loser would be at risk of dropping to a two. Texas A&M might need the win more, since it was a two seed in the first bracket reveal, while South Carolina was the second overall seed. In Charlie Creme’s bracketology Friday, he had both Texas A&M and South Carolina as one seeds.

When #5 South Carolina and #3 Texas A&M play, it will be the first-ever top-5 game at Reed Arena and the first time all season the Gamecocks have been the lower-ranked team. A win would be the Gamecocks’ highest-ranked win since beating #2 Baylor last season. Staley said the Gamecocks have been calm and focused preparing for the game, but needless to say she is anxious to see how they actually respond.

“I’m actually looking forward to seeing how this team approaches it, how this team can execute, especially on the road against a really good basketball team,” Staley said. “I hope we can put it all together and win a big game like this.”

If that isn’t enough to convince you this is a big game, South Carolina got new shoes for the occasion.

2. Keep Cooke-ing

Complaining about the number of shots Zia Cooke takes has become a cause celebre on Twitter this season. While her shooting percentage (38.9%) would ideally be higher, that complaint is largely off-base.

For starters, Cooke is what she is: a streak scorer. She has to be allowed to shoot because you never know when she is going to go off and score eight or 10 or 13 straight points. Second, she’s normally a good shooter. She starts missing shots when she rushes and lacks confidence in her shot.

“I’m telling her during the game, she makes good shots bad by changing them,” Staley said. “Her jump shots, she just changes them in mid-air and it’s not an effective way to score. When her feet are set and her butt’s underneath her, she makes shots. When she changes up that, she misses shots. She’s in the habit of doing that and it’s taken a little longer to make the adjustment.”

Third, shooting is what made her a national player of the year candidate, and that is her role. Worrying about shooting percentages ignores another fact: a missed shot isn’t a bad thing for the Gamecocks, in fact it can be a good thing. The Gamecocks are fourth in the country in offensive rebounding at 17.0 per game, and average 17.6 second chance points per game while leading the SEC in offensive rebounding rate, grabbing 43.6% of their missed shots. As long as the shot is in the flow of the offense with rebounders in position, or even better, off a drive that forces the defense to rotate out of rebounding position, a missed shot is practically an assist. As long as Cooke takes the right shots, even if she is missing it works for the Gamecocks.

3. More Boston

“I told the entire team, we can think we can win games with Aliyah taking four shots,” Staley said Thursday, after the second straight game where Boston only took four shots. “We’re not, it's fool’s gold if we think we’re going to be able to do that. We’re going to have to force the issue and be able to get her the ball in a position to score and not just facilitate. I think we’re executing that part of it as far as working through her. Now you’ve got to counter that.”

Boston spent more time in the high post against Kentucky and Ole Miss. The Gamecocks ran more of their offense through Boston, taking some pressure and wear and tear of Destanni Henderson. In that respect, it worked. Boston draws attention no matter where she is on the court, and she has become a smart passer who can get the ball to the right teammate and open up space for cutters to get to the rim.

The counter Staley mentioned is figuring out how to still get Boston the ball down low. She’s too good, borderline unstoppable, when she gets the ball around the basket to take that out of the game plan.

It seems relevant that both the Kentucky and Ole Miss games were comfortable 20-point wins. If those games had been close, I suspect Boston would have been parked on the low block for the entire fourth quarter. South Carolina didn’t need that from Boston. Expect her there early and often against Texas A&M.

4. More LA

Staley brought up Laeticia Amihere without being asked Friday, so let’s look at Amihere’s week. Amihere was named to the SEC’s Community Service team earlier this week, but Staley was talking about on-court performance.

Amihere had 12 points and 13 rebounds against Kentucky, her first double-double since she had two in the first four games of the season. She followed that with eight points and three rebounds against Ole Miss, her best two game stretch since scoring a total of 21 points against Kentucky and Vanderbilt in January. What the stats don’t show is how good Amihere’s defense has been.

Against Kentucky she played 26 minutes and replaced Victaria Saxton, one of the Gamecocks’ best defenders, in the second half. Amihere’s 6-10 wingspan, the longest on the team, was a big part of how South Carolina was able to shut down Rhyne Howard. Because of her length, Amihere was able to shut off passing lanes while also forcing Howard off her spots.

“I think LA has given us some great basketball over the past week-and-a-half, two weeks,” Staley said. “We’re seeing it in the stats, but I saw it before the stats. I just had a feeling of her putting it together on both sides of the ball. Now the stats are following that good play.”

5. Scouting the Aggies

It took the Aggies a while to gain national recognition this season. It was due partly to a lack of a big, marquee win, but also due to a refusal to believe what had become evident by the end of last season: the Aggies are a better team without Chennedy Carter, despite the fact that she was a generational-type talent as a scorer.

Gary Blair brought in eight new players and reshaped the roster around seniors Aaliyah Wilson (13.0 points), N’dea Jones (12.0 points and 10.4 rebounds), Kayla Wells (11.7 points) and Ciera Johnson (10.5 points and 7.5 rebounds). Transfer Destiny Pitts (48% from three) provides the spark off the bench. Any of those five is capable of getting hot and leading the Aggies to a victory, and in many ways the Aggies and Gamecocks are mirror images.

If you take away the inside game of Jones and Johnson, Wilson and Pitts will take advantage. If you focus on the perimeter, Jones has become an SEC Player of the Year candidate inside.

“They are pretty efficient,” Staley said. “Gary Blair always puts his players in a position to score, that is their niche on the floor. He’s done that well with this team. They are solid. They’ve got a solid starting five, they have depth coming off the bench, they can play big, they can play small, they’re just really versatile. They spread it out so you’re not really concentrating on one person like the last couple of years. Everybody has waited their turn, and now they are showing what they can do with the ball in their hands.”

Defensively, these are the top two teams in the SEC. South Carolina allows 59.7 points per game while Texas A&M allows 60.7. South Carolina is coming off two of its best defensive efforts of the season. The Gamecocks shut down Rhyne Howard and Kentucky last weekend, holding Howard to 12 points and allowing just 55 total points. That was followed by limiting Ole miss to just 43 points, tying a season-low for points allowed in an SEC game.

“We have to play as stingy as we did tonight and as we did against Kentucky,” Staley said following the Ole Miss game.

The Ws

Who: #5 South Carolina (19-3, 13-1) at #3 Texas A&M (21-1, 12-1)

When: Sunday, February 28, 2:00 pm

Where: Reed Arena, College Station, Texas

Watch: ESPN2