South Carolina's Defensive Depth Created Problems for SEC's Top Scorers

Defense has been South Carolina’s calling card this season as they’ve faced a league full of talented scorers.

Aliyah Boston was the lone Gamecock named to the SEC All-Defensive team, though arguments could made for several others, including Mikiah Herbert Harrigan and Brea Beal.

Most recently the Gamecocks were able to slow down Texas A&M’s Chennedy Carter, is undoubtedly going in the first round of this year’s WNBA Draft. Carter scored just 12 points on 6-of-19 shooting.

USC has shown they can handle some of the conference’s premier scorers like recently named SEC Player of the Year Rhyne Howard of Kentucky, who scored 24 points in her second game against USC, but shot 5-of-22 from the field.

Here’s a look at how the top scorers in the SEC fared against South Carolina’s defense.

Player	School	Average	Average vs USC	% vs USC
Rhyne Howard	Kentucky	23.3 ppg	26 ppg	33%
Chennedy Carter	Texas A&M	21.3 ppg	12 points	31%
Rennia Davis	Tennessee	18.3 ppg	18 points	41%
Chelsea Dungee	Arkansas	17.0 ppg	15 ppg	26%
Alexis Tolefree	Arkansas	16.3 ppg	17.5 ppg	34%
Lavender Briggs	Florida	14.8 ppg	15 points	46%

One of thing South Carolina has been able to do is tire opponents’ leading scorers out by throwing multiple looks at them as seen in the Texas A&M game.

Head coach Dawn Staley said her team has the personnel on the bench to keep up the high level defense throughout the game.

“We’re a far better defensive team with what we have coming off the bench,” she said. “LeLe [Grissett] is super athletic and big and competitive. [Destanni Henderson] is small and lightning quick and gets in you and under you. Victaria [Saxton] and Laetica [Amihere], they’re shot blockers. They’re rim protectors. So we don’t lose much when we have to go to our bench from a defensive side.”

The Gamecocks await their first opponent in the SEC Tournment and play this Friday at noon in Greenville, SC.

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