No. 1 South Carolina women's basketball routs Hampton, Aliyah Boston exits with injury
COLUMBIA — No. 1 South Carolina women's basketball routed Hampton 85-38 on Sunday in its first home game at Colonial Life Arena since the season opener on Nov. 7.
The Gamecocks (6-0) dominated nearly wire-to-wire against Hampton (2-3) in their fourth win of the season by 40 points or more, following up on a 43-point victory against Cal Poly.
Star forward Aliyah Boston, the reigning consensus national player of the year, exited the game at the end of the second quarter with an apparent lower-leg injury after she was fouled under the basket. Boston returned to the bench late in the third quarter wearing a walking boot on her right foot.
"It was not very good ... we played uninspired with low energy," coach Dawn Staley said of the team's response to Boston's injury. "It was bad basketball, and I let it go probably a little longer than I wanted to to see if they would play themselves out of it. We just couldn't clean it up, so we just brought in the young guns and brought some energy."
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Three South Carolina players finished with double-digit points, led by sophomore Bree Hall and freshman Ashlyn Watkins with 14 points apiece. Junior center Kamilla Cardoso was right behind them with 11.
Watkins, who became the first player to dunk in program history against Clemson last week, has had a big impact in her first season with the Gamecocks. She logged a double-double in a 79-36 win over Cal Poly and has scored in double figures in four of six games this season. Hall, who averaged 2.7 points per game last season, entered the matchup with Hampton averaging seven points per game and finished with a career-high.
"They're players that are going to play every game," Staley said. "They are utilizing a game like this to gain more confidence, and I like to see them just creating good habits. I want (Watkins) to be a little bit more aggressive when it comes to some of the offensive stuff she can do ... Breezy is that. Breezy is aggressive and plays the same way all the time, so you know what you're getting from her."
Freshman Talaysia Cooper also had a solid performance, logging nine points and seven rebounds in the second half.
Gamecocks flex size advantage
After Boston's exit, Cardoso recorded her first double-double of the season with 11 points and 14 rebounds in 16 minutes of play. Hampton's tallest player measures just 6-foot-3, which gave the 6-7 Cardoso a clear opening to put up big numbers.
Laeticia Amihere, a 6-3 forward, scored her first points of the game on pass over the top from 6-5 Boston, and Boston then scored under the basket herself on a high pass from 6-2 Victaria Saxton. The team finished with 62 points in the paint and 20 second-chance points, outrebounding the Pirates 62-15.
Amihere remains essential off the bench
Laeticia Amihere substituted in for Boston in the second half starting lineup and had a well-rounded performance with seven points, three assists, two rebounds and a steal. She went 3-for-4 shooting from the field. Amihere also led the players off of the bench in the win at Cal Poly with 14 points, and she added nine in the Gamecocks' overtime victory against Stanford.
Amihere said her passion this season has come partially from losses in her personal life: Her older brother died suddenly in August, and Amihere's godmother Olga Lambert died in October after a battle with breast cancer.
"She's focused. She wants it," Staley said. "She's filling the void the right way, meaning she's just extra focused on basketball and being the energy and being the versatile player that we all know she's capable of being.
The bench had a huge impact overall against Hampton with 65 of 85 points coming from the substitutes. Neither of the leading scorers, Hall and Watkins, started the game, nor did Cardoso.
"Our bench plays a huge role for us. It's tough to win a game with just the starting five," Amihere said. "At Stanford, it was tough because we really had to exhaust our whole bench, but I think it's magical to have a team like that that you can just call on anybody."
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Aliyah Boston injured as South Carolina women's basketball routs Hampton
