In a fairly critical meeting for both teams, the South Carolina Gamecocks women's basketball team will visit the Crimson Tide on Sunday afternoon. Both teams occupied the Southeastern Conference basement, last season, so getting a win over the other would provide (at the very least) a mental edge. The Tide needs to win as many home games as possible, as their road record has been dismal. The Gamecocks need to steal a few road games to be able to break even with their conference record.

Last season, the Gamecocks won this matchup by 11 points at the Colonial Life Arena--but it's a different team, really, while Alabama returns a lot of experienced players. The freshman class sees very few minutes of playing time.

The Tide is led by junior guard Varisia Raffington, scoring 12.5 points per game, and junior forward Tierney Jenkins with an 11.3 points-per-game average. Jenkins also leads the team in rebounding with 10.7 per game, while Raffington is second with 4.8 per game and senior forward Tamara Williams chips in another 4.5 per game. Junior guard LaToya King leads the team in assists with 3.8 per game, followed by senior guard Dedrea Magee with 3.2 assists per game.

As a team, the Tide is scoring 70.8 points per game while allowing 63.1 and shooting 40% while allowing the opponent 37%. Opponents are shooting slightly better than Alabama from behind the 3-point line: 32% to 28%. They are averaging 18 turnovers a game to 22.3 by their opponents.

These statistics, I believe, bode well for the USC team. Assuming that they do not suffer the sort of letdown that they had against Boston U, the Gamecocks should be highly competitive against any team that doesn't boast clear superiority in talent (like Notre Dame), height, experience (like LSU) or all 3--like UNC and Tennessee.  The Crimson Tide has more playing experience, but not that much WINNING experience, and are a good matchup for the Gamecocks. The Tide's home record is good, but the non-conference schedule they played was truly unimpressive.

The Gamecocks have not had an easy time with the SEC schedule, so far, beginning this stretch by playing 2 of the league's more outstanding teams in LSU and Tennessee.  Alabama is not in that category and should give South Carolina a better idea of how they will be able to compete against the middle and lower-tier SEC teams, which will go a long way towards determining where the Gamecocks will finish (and their tournament seed.) USC really needs to beat some of the weaker teams on the road, because this season's schedule has them playing home-and-away with 3 of the best (Georgia, LSU, Tennessee) and just splitting those games would be a major accomplishment that USC may not be quite ready to handle.

The Gamecocks had major problems executing their game play against both LSU and Tennessee. Leading scorer Valerie Nainima had great difficulty getting open early in both games and the other guards were slow to take up the scoring slack for her. Freshman center Kelsey Bone has had her hands full (often literally) dealing with bigger and stronger players in the paint (than those faced early in the season) and several of the new-to-the-league players have underestimated the speed, reach and jumping ability (or maybe just the tenacity) of the typical--or better--SEC defense. We see it every year, the somewhat lazy or ill-advised passes that result in breakaway layups at the other end of the court. USC is, after all, a young team that is actively learning to play together and to play to win. With such a short bench, there are no apprenticeships, it is ALL on-the-job training. That's not a bad thing, but it is a given that players will make mistakes--especially while they are learning. Hopefully, those mistakes will be a bit less costly against Alabama, allowing the Gamecocks to experience learning what it takes to win a road game in the SEC.

Tipoff is scheduled for 3 pm Eastern Time. Follow the game on the radio at 1320 AM.