COLUMBIA, S.C. — With the SEC Women's Basketball Tournament tipping off this week, the conference has announced its annual awards and no surprise that the number one team in the country dominates the list of winners.
Head coach Dawn Staley is the SEC Coach of the Year after leading South Carolina to an undefeated regular season, just the fourth SEC team to finish the regular season with a perfect record. The Gamecocks are ranked first in both the Associated Press and Coaches Top 25 polls. The Gamecocks’ current 36-week run at No. 1 ties Louisiana Tech for the second-longest streak in the history of that poll.
Five Gamecock players are honored by the league with senior forward Aliyah Boston being named the SEC Player of the Year and SEC Defensive Player of the Year, the second year in a row she has won both those awards.
The reigning National Player of the Year, Boston is the only player in the country ranked in the top five of both offensive and defensive player rating, leading the SEC in both categories. Her 13.3 points and 9.7 rebounds per game on the season go up dramatically against ranked opponents to 16.8 points and 11.7 rebounds, perhaps in line with the trend of playing less minutes in games against non-ranked opponents.
Senior guard Zia Cooke joined Boston on the All-SEC First Team with senior Bree Beal joining Boston on the SEC All-Defensive Team.
Cook leads the Gamecocks in scoring and ranking eighth in the SEC with 15.5 points per game on a career-high 41.3 percent field goal shooting.
Beal has brought her hard-nosed tenacity on defense and it has led to her being in the top 15 of the SEC with an average of 1.1 blocks per game.
Junior center Kamilla Cardoso was named the SEC Sixth Women of the Year along with landing on the All-SEC Second Team. She has come off the bench to average a little more than 18 minute per game and she ranks third on the team with a 9.7 points per game average.
Redshirt freshman Raven Johnson was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team. Johnson ranks 13th nationally with a 2.5 assist-to-turnover ratio,one of the most accurate statistics to determine a guard's effectiveness..She has handed out 3.2 assists per game to rank 12th in the SEC, playing just 17.2 minutes per game, making her 18th in the nation in assists per 40 minutes. Johnson has posted five or more assists eight times this season, including four games with a career-high seven.
The Gamecocks are coming off Sunday's win over Georgia where they clinched the SEC regular season title outright and ran their record to 29-0, 16-0 in the SEC.
They will be in Greenville where they will play Friday at noon in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals against the winner of Thursday's game between Arkansas and Missouri.
