Five Gamecocks Pick Up SEC Honors

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Southeastern Conference women’s basketball head coaches recognized five Gamecocks, including Te’a Cooper, Tyasha Harris and Alexis Jennings on the All-SEC Second Team, the league office announced today. South Carolina freshmen Destanni Henderson and Victaria Saxton earned SEC All-Freshman Team honors as well. The Associated Press also released its All-SEC awards today, which included Harris as a second-team choice.
 
Cooper is the Gamecocks’ leading scorer on the season, ranking 27th in the SEC with 11.8 points per game. Her 10 games as the team’s top scorer are double the next Gamecocks in line, and she has accounted for five of the team’s 10 20-point games this season, including the lone 30-point outing. Her scoring average jumps to 15.1 points in the Gamecocks’ 10 games against ranked opponents. Cooper is on the Dawn Staley Award Midseason Watch List and is picking up the second SEC honor of her career after making the SEC All-Freshman Team in 2015-16 while at Tennessee.
 
Harris is on both the All-SEC Second Team of both organizations for the second time in as many seasons and has been recognized by the league’s coaches every year of her career, as she picked up All-Freshman Team honors in 2016-17. This season, Harris averages 5.3 assists to rank 28th in the nation and scores 10.7 points per game. Her 2.91 assist-to-turnover ratio is 14th in the nation. She is among the SEC’s top 10 with 1.7 steals per game. In SEC action, her assists rise to 6.2 per game thanks to three double-digit assist games in the last five league games. Her three points-assists double-doubles this season give her nine for her career, which matches the program record for such double-doubles. In SEC games, between her points and assists, Harris has her hands on 25.3 points per game – 34.4 percent of the Gamecocks’ offense.
 
Jennings has been the most consistent Gamecock this season with a team-high 18 games in double-figures and four double-doubles. She is second on the team in scoring (11.0 ppg) and is 19^th in the league in rebounding with 6.2 per game. In SEC action, her 6.9 rebounds per game ranks 13th in the conference and go with a team-high 11.8 points per game. She has scored in double figures in 12 of South Carolina’s 16 SEC games, including three double-doubles. She has been on a tear recently in blocked shots, picking up 15 of her 30 this season in the last six games. This season’s selection is Jennings’ first postseason recognition from the conference since she was on the 2014-15 SEC All-Freshman Team.
 
Henderson and Saxton were dominant during the middle of the SEC schedule, beginning with breakout games at Arkansas. Henderson went on to score in double figures five times in a six-game stretch to help keep the Gamecocks in the running for the regular-season title. On the season, she added 5.8 points and 1.3 assists per game while shooting a team-best 41.8 percent from 3-point range. Saxton showed that she will be the Gamecocks’ next shot-blocking force with 1.3 per game to rank eighth in the SEC. Her 3.0 rebounds and 4.3 points per game have come playing just 10.7 minutes per game. She turned in four games of six or more rebounds during SEC play.
 
The No. 12 Gamecocks (21-8 13-3 SEC) earned the second seed in this week’s SEC Tournament in Greenville, S.C. South Carolina will take on the winner of the game between No. 10-seed Arkansas and seventh-seeded Georgia on Fri., March 8, at 6 p.m. on SEC Network.