We are roughly a third of the way through the season and some statistical trends are starting to develop as players move up the record books.

Zia Cooke is three points away from 1,000 in her career. She has scored fewer than three points just twice in her career (a pair of two-point games as a freshman). She would reach the milestone in her 74th career game. Due to her recent slump, Cooke is actually averaging a career-low 11.8 points per game.

Aliyah Boston (more on her later, much more) is 12 points away from 1,000. She has scored at least 12 points in six straight games and would also reach the milestone in her 74th game.

Destanni Henderson is 74 points shy of 1,000 career points. She is averaging 12.3 points per game this season, so she should reach the mark in about six games.

Boston and Cooke have started all 73 games of their careers, tying them for fourth in school history in consecutive games started. With two more starts they will move into a tie for third. Assuming they don’t miss any starts, they could pass Shannon Johnson for second place (81) in January, and could catch Tiffany Mitchell’s record of 103 with a deep postseason run.

Henderson is shooting 50% from three this season (14-28). Only one player in program history has shot 50% or better from three for an entire season, Tiffany Mitchell (54.1%, 40-74) in 2013-14. Henderson shot 41.4% from three last season, which was the eighth-best single season percentage. She is currently shooting 38.2% for her career, which is tied with Shannon Johnson for third best. Henderson needs three more threes to enter the top ten for threes made.

Henderson has 326 career assists, and with an average of 4.5 assists per game this season, she should enter the top ten for career assists late in the season.

Kamilla Cardoso is currently averaging 1.8 blocks per game. She is just outside the top ten for single season blocks average.

Brea Beal is averaging a career-low 4.9 points per game, but is shooting 42.9% from three, better than she shot from the floor in either of her first two seasons. Beal is shooting 52.9% from the floor this season. Victoria Saxton is also averaging a career-low 3.9 points per game. Both are victims of circumstance: they rarely have plays run for them, so their points tend to come in bunches depending on matchups.

Laeticia Amihere is averaging career-highs in minutes played (19.6), points (8.2), field goal percentage (43.6%), free throws percentage (65.7%), assists (1.1), steals (1.3), and blocks (1.3). Amihere is a perfect 3-3 from three and set her single game career-highs in scoring (18) and assists (7) this season.

And now, Aliyah Boston …

Boston has 190 career blocks, already third-most in program history. She is 20 behind Mikiah Herbert Harrigan and Alaina Coates for second place. She’s on pace to pass them in January, although with the way Boston can get blocks in bunches, you never know. The school record is 363 blocks, by A’ja Wilson.

Boston has 748 career rebounds. She needs 86 more to enter the top ten, which should happen in nine or ten games. She is already ninth in offensive rebounds (268) and should move into eighth next week. Boston is eighth in defensive rebounds and should move up to sixth next week. Boston’s career rebounding average is 10.2 rebounds per game, which is fourth all-time, although she is actually averaging a career-low 9.0 rebounds this season, although she is averaging 12.5 over the last four games.

Boston moved into seventh in career double-doubles after the Kansas State game. She needs nine more to enter the top five.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Boston this season is how productive she’s been in limited minutes. Boston is averaging a career-low 23.2 minutes per game. That will certainly go up by the end of the season, but right now she’s barely playing over half a game and still averaging 16.8 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks. Boston has played just 33 minutes in the fourth quarter all season, and sat out the final frame entirely three times. She’s played more than 26 minutes just once this season - 35 minutes against UConn.

As a team, South Carolina is averaging 8.55 blocks per game. The school record, set in 2019-20 is 8.6 blocks per game. That was the NCAA record for average blocked shots.

South Carolina is currently averaging 45.4 rebounds per game with an average margin of plus-17.8. The school records are 47.0 rebounds per game and plus-14.4, set last season. Also as a team …

Top Ten Wins

South Carolina beat three opponents ranked in the AP top ten in its first six games.* It was a tremendous accomplishment, one that probably didn’t get enough respect for how rare it is. I joked that South Carolina had already clinched a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament just two weeks into the season. Not quite, but pretty close. Here a look at how many regular season AP top ten wins each final four team and number one seed had in the last five seasons (top seeds that did not make the Final Four are in italics. There was no tournament in 2020.)

*Obviously AP top ten wins is an imperfect metric - Oregon clearly wasn’t a top ten team - but it’s what we’ve got.

Of the past four Final Fours, only one team had more non-conference top ten wins (although 2017 South Carolina also had three), and that was UConn. The Huskies were in a unique situation in that they were totally unchallenged by their conference schedule and had to go out of conference to build their resume.

Looking at the rest of the season, South Carolina has four more games against teams currently in the top ten, and all but one are non-conference (#8 Maryland, #4 Stanford, #3 UConn, and #9 Tennessee). Win them all and they would top UConn.

It’s also worth noting that scheduling tough games is the norm this season as teams have concluded that the rewards for a big win outweigh the costs for a loss. Three other teams have two top ten wins (NC State, Stanford, and South Florida).

The first NET rankings were released Monday and South Carolina debuted in the top position there as well. However it’s still so early in the season that one shouldn’t read too much into them.

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