The South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team opens their season against Penn State, at College Park, on Sunday November 16th–a rematch of sorts. Last season’s home opener at the Colonial Center was host to the Lady Lions. But it can’t really be considered a rematch–too much has changed, at least for South Carolina.
Penn State returns essentially the same team, though minus their top rebounder (6.5 pg) and second-leading scorer (13.4 pg) Kamela Gissendanner, lost to graduation. Second-year coach Coquese Washington has added 3 freshman guards to the mix, but don’t expect them to be a factor in this game, with 6 of the top 7 players from last year still on the team–and 6 of them just happen to be guards. If one of them is a really good 3-point shooter, that could make the difference in getting some playing time.
Junior Tyra Grant leads the PSU team with 13.6 points and 4 rebounds per game and last year’s assist leader (147) senior Brianne O’Rourke returns 11.2 points and 2.5 rebounds. O’Rourke was also second on the team with 35 steals, last season. Senior Mashea Williams brings 9.7 points and 4 rebounds per game and hopes to improve her team-leading steals total of 39. Expect the starting lineup to be rounded out with sophomore Janessa Wolff (6.2 ppg and 4.5 rpg) and Rashida Mark, with 3.9 points and 3.7 rebounds per game. Julia Trogele, Evelyn Lewis and Meredith Monroe will bring some experience, coming off the bench.
The Lady Lions were 13-18 last season and only 4-14 in their conference, but 10-6 at home and 7-0 against non-conference foes. This does not bode well for the retooled Gamecocks team. However, there is room for optimism. Last year’s contest was a close game, decided by just 7 points. The only statistical category that wasn’t close was free-throw shooting: 16-20 for Penn State and 5-11 for South Carolina. (Free-throw shooting was actually the only category in which Penn State outperformed their opponents, last season.) You can draw your own conclusions about that disparity in free-throws.
The Gamecocks wasted a lot of energy, last year, trying desperately to get open for 3-point shots; that won’t happen again. I expect this year’s team to take the shots that are available, instead. The Gamecocks will be looking at much the same team that they saw, last year; the Lady Lions will be looking at a team that has transitioned from one of the tallest teams in the country, proficient at shot-blocking, to something rather different. This team will have to rely more on their quickness and decision-making and taking smart, open shots.
Both Demetress Adams and Samone Kennedy had good games against PSU, last year. Both players have improved and the team looks ready to go. This team is eager to play and eager to win. The hard-fought win against Peach State Elite gave them a chance to prove that the new system is workable. And just possibly, the Gamecocks may have a slight mental edge on the Lady Lions. Why? Because Penn State collapsed, last year, after sliding into conference play with a 9-4 record that included wins over Duke, Charlotte, Pittsburgh and Mississippi. They made it to 4-3 in the conference through January 20th–before they fell apart and lost 12 straight games to finish the season. Has head coach Coquese Washington figured out why? Late in the season, they were hammered by a few teams that they had beaten earlier in the year: Illinois, Michigan State and Michigan, among them. The Lady Lions had a nice exhibition win, last week, but that game was against Division II team California (PA). They are among the best in D-II, but this team needs to beat a Division I team before they can put to rest the doubts about when they will WIN another meaningful game. They will have a home court advantage, including an average attendance of just over 5000 fairly loud fans.
The Gamecocks are still a bit difficult to pin down. The advantage here is that the same is true for the PSU staff that is putting together the game plan. Demetress Adams and Brionna Dickerson are likely to start and lead the way, along with Jewel May. Your guess is as good as mine as far as the other two guards. ( I do expect that we’ll be seeing a 3-guard lineup, most of this season.) I’ll guess that they will be Lakeisha Sutton and Samone Kennedy for the opener, but that’s just speculation. Kennedy because of her experience and better assist-to-turnover ratio than the other guards and Sutton because she appears to be unfazed by the speed of the college game and takes good shots. Those are my choices, but I haven’t been to practice and don’t know who else is available. I do expect Courtney Newton to get on the court, as soon as she is available, but Cocoa, C. J. and Miranda Tate are all waiting for some minutes, too. Sada Wheeler will need to continue to put in quality minutes in relief of Adams and everyone is looking forward to seeing both Tonia Williams and Charenee Stephens make their playing debuts. So far, we have only seen one game–a game that doesn’t count in the standings–but already the team has delivered what coach Dawn Staley promised that they would: an effort that would make the fans proud. That was always one of Staley’s trademarks as a player and has carried over to become the definition of her coaching style: Hard work gets results. It certainly worked at Temple and it will work at South Carolina, too. I think that if the Gamecock team shows the same effort at Penn State that they did against Peach State, the Gamecocks will be 1-0 when they host the Clemson Tigers on November 19th.
