South Carolina plays the first of three games this week when it hosts Vanderbilt Monday night.

1. Title talk

Old rival Kentucky occasionally does South Carolina a favor, usually by beating Mississippi State. #18 Kentucky upset #6 Mississippi State Sunday, the Wildcats’ first win over a top 10 team since 2017. That year they also beat Mississippi State, a game that helped South Carolina win the SEC by eliminating the Bulldogs’ lead in the standings. This year, South Carolina already had the lead, but Kentucky’s win still helps. With five games left and a now two game lead, South Carolina can clinch the SEC regular season championship this week. (This is the usual reminder that the SEC does not break ties for the regular season title, only tournament seeding.)

Dawn Staley has not addressed the standings with the team, but associate head coach Lisa Boyer slipped and brought it up Sunday (before the Kentucky-Mississippi State game)

“We don’t mention it - actually somebody just mentioned it today,” Staley said. “Coach Boyer mentioned it to the group today and I’m like, why? We just want to take care of Vandy and let the chips fall where they may.”

Staley noted that the rest of the schedule is no pushover. There are three games in seven days this week, including LSU and Kentucky, and the season finale against Texas A&M, which has Chennedy Carter back. She’s confident that the players won’t get ahead of themselves, something Brea Beal echoed.

“For us, it’s more so that we’re worried about the next game,” Beal said Thursday. “We don’t talk about further down the line. We want to focus on who we play next, what we want to do, our game plan for that.”

2. More on Brea

At one point during that Kentucky-Mississippi State game the announcers asked rhetorically, “Who could possibly slow down Rhyne Howard? Nobody!” At that point I suspect every Gamecock fan said, “Uh, Brea Beal did it.”

Beal has established herself as the stopper on a defense that has held all but two teams below their season scoring average, and all but one below their season shooting percentage. Beal didn’t arrive on campus known for her defense. She was tasked with scoring and rebounding in high school. The first glimpse of her defensive prowess came in the McDonald’s All-American game, when Beal had eight rebounds, three blocks, and a steal. Still, Staley admitted that she didn’t realize what a good defender Beal is “until we asked her to do it.”

“When she just did it without any question, it just showed me,” Staley said. “I told her today her biggest separation is her mental strength. I told her not to lose that, because that’s her separation from other great players.”

As a Gamecock, Beal’s first real standout defensive performance came in the Virgin Islands against Washington State. Guarding senior Borislava Hristova, Washington State’s leading scorer, Beal forced Hristova into a tie-up and missed shot on the first possession, and a turnover on the second. She hounded Hristova into just nine points on 4-15 shooting, the only time all season Hristova has been held to single digits scoring.

“(I’m) somebody who’s able to take on the challenge, seek the best player on the other team,” Beal said. “I think for my part I like to do that and just lock in and be able to go off the scout and what they love to do best and stop them from doing that.”

Staley agreed.

“Her competitiveness,” she said. “Her ability to lock into a player and want them to not score. She doesn’t want them to score on her. When you take pride in that, that’s an incredible intangible that’s irreplaceable.”

One of the most impressive things about Beal has been how she never lets her defense change the rest of her game. How often do you see a player give up a basket on defense and then try to get it back on offense. Beal avoids that temptation, even though at first it was an adjustment from her high school days.

“As a freshman coming into it, you’re not used to it, so you may be a little frustrated,” Beal said. “Once you understand what your role is and what you’re good at, you can facilitate and do other things to help the team, push them further along rather than just scoring. You have a whole team of scorers, and if they’re able to do that and I’m able to take care of what I need to it’s no problem.”

Beal gets most of the attention on defense, but she spearheads a team effort. The Gamecocks have excelled this season at communicating and directing players where the Gamecocks want them to go, and where the shot-blockers are waiting.

“They’re competitors. They want to win their individual matchups and they want to win the game. They just really have an appetite for, I wouldn’t say perfection, but completion.” Staley said. “If you can get a team to commit on defense, you can get them to commit to anything you want them to do. Defense is the hardest thing to get up for night in and night out, and this team does it.”

But back to Howard. She scored 28 against South Carolina, but they were, as Staley said after the game, “insignificant points.” Howard had 13 points on 5-12 shooting in the first half, plus six turnovers. She scored 15 in the second half, after Kentucky was already down 21 and eventually lost by 27. Still, she rates as the toughest assignment Beal has had to date.

“The person that scored the most was Rhyne Howard,” she said. “She’s just so consistent with how she scores. Sometimes you just really can’t do much about it.”

3.The return of LA

Laeticia Amihere made her return against Auburn after missing the previous three games due to team Canada commitments. She was noticeably out of sync, scoring just four points on 1-5 shooting with three turnovers.

“She’s a little rusty,” Staley said after Thursday’s game. “In fairness we threw her out there. She’s been away from us for eight or nine days. She had one day of practice, so a little unfair. The more rust we can knock off and the more game situations we can put her in, the better.”

The Gamecocks didn’t practice Friday, so Amihere got two days of practice in going into Monday’s game. She should get solid playing time against Vaderbilt, a team she notched 11 points, five rebounds, and two blocks against in their first meeting.

“It’s a good feeling to have her back,” Zia Cooke said. “She is aggressive, she gets the rebounds, she makes the hustle plays. It’s something that we really need. We missed her a lot.”

4. Raining threes

After the Connecticut game, Geno Auriemma said that the Huskies wanted to make South Carolina shoot threes, and they didn’t expect South Carolina to knock down 8-22.

“They had kids make threes that hadn’t made a three all year long,” he said. “You come into the game and you go, the majority of their offense is transition baskets and second shots, so let’s see if we can take those away and take our chances. And then they make (threes).”

If Auriemma was frustrated, what must Auburn’s Terri Williams-Flournoy have felt when South Carolina made five consecutive threes to start the game?

Through the first 20 games of the season (going into the Ole Miss game), South Carolina attempted more than 20 threes just twice, during a two game stretch in November against USC Upstate and Clemson, when they attempted 23 both games. But in the last five games, South Carolina has attempted 22 threes twice, and 19 threes three times. That averages out to 20.2 attempts per game (101 total) after averaging just 13.3 (266 total) in the first 20 games. Put another way, South Carolina has attempted over 27.5 percent of its threes in the last five games.

In the last five games, South Carolina is making 7.4 threes, shooting 36.63 percent. That is a very slight decrease from the 37.97 percent South Carolina was shooting over the first 20 games.

Why the change? Part of it is other teams packing the paint on defense to slow down Aliyah Boston. Another part of it is players getting more comfortable with their shots and playing matchups. As long as they keep falling, it doesn’t matter the reason.

5. Scouting the Commodores

South Carolina beat Vanderbilt 93-57 on January 12 in Nashville. It was an inconsistent game despite the final score. For Vanderbilt, it was the start of a six game losing streak, and the Commodores have won just one of their last eight games. Five of those losses came to ranked opponents, but it is clear that despite signs of progress this season, Vanderbilt still has a way to go before it can compete with the upper echelon of the SEC.

In the first meeting, South Carolina effectively limited Vanderbilt’s top two players.

Leading scorer Koi Love, who averages 14.0 points per game, had just six points on 3-17 shooting. Mariella Fasoula had 12 points, just below her average, but shot 6-14 and had just three rebounds.

The Ws

Who: #1 South Carolina (24-1, 11-0) vs Vanderbilt (13-11, 3-8)

When: Monday, February 17, 7:00 pm

Where: Colonial life Arena

Watch: SEC Network