Awards Keep Coming for Boston and Staley
COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley and senior Aliyah Boston added to their awards collection today with the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association and the Los Angeles Athletic Club announcing their 2023 awards today. Staley picked up her third Coach of the Year award this season with her peers making the pick for the WBCA. Boston earned All-America status from the group for the third-straight season, and she was named a finalist for the Wooden Award for the third time in as many seasons.
Staley, who is now just the fourth coach all-time to be WBCA Coach of the Year at least three times, has led this Gamecock team to a 36-0 record and both the SEC Regular-Season and Tournament championships. South Carolina’s 36 wins are a single-season program record, as its current 42-game win streak that dates back to the 2022 NCAA Tournament. The team has been ranked No. 1 in both national polls every week of the season, just the third program to do that. The program’s current 38-week run at No. in the AP Poll is the second-longest streak in the history of that poll. The Gamecocks’ nine wins over ranked opponents are the second-most in the country this season and their 13 road wins are tied for the most in the nation. Seven different Gamecocks have led the team in scoring at least once, including five who came off the bench to do it. South Carolina is back in the NCAA Final Four for the fifth time in the last eight NCAA Tournaments, including each of the last three.
The unanimous 2022 National Player of the Year, Boston continues to dominate her sport on both sides of the ball as the only player in the nation to rank among the top six in both player offensive and defensive rating, according to Her Hoops Stats. The two-time SEC Player of the Year and four-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year has powered through every imaginable defensive scheme this season to still rank sixth in the nation with 22 double-doubles, 24th in field goal percentage (.568), 26th in blocks per game (2.00) and 26th in rebounds per game (9.8). Boston’s averages skyrocket in the high-end games as she averages 15.8 points and 11.7 rebounds in nine games against ranked opponents.
Just the fifth four-time AP All-American in the history of that award, Boston is just the 10th player to earn first-team honors at least three times. She is the first three-time winner of the Lisa Leslie Award and is a finalist for that honor again this season. In addition to her program-record 82 career double-doubles, which rank her second all-time in the SEC, Boston holds program records for career rebounds (1,483), offensive rebounds (514), defensive rebounds (969) and consecutive games started (137). She has scored in double figures 116 times in her 137 games (.848) and 36 of her double-doubles have come in her 51 career games against ranked opponents.
No. 1/1 South Carolina will face No. 3/3 Iowa in the NCAA Final Four on Fri., March 31, at approximately 9 p.m. ET.
Continue to check GamecocksOnline.com and the team’s social media accounts (@GamecockWBB) for the most up-to-date information on the women’s basketball season.
2023 WBCA All-America Team
Aliyah Boston, South Carolina
Cameron Brink, Stanford
Caitlin Clark, Iowa
Mackenzie Holmes, Indiana
Ashley Joens, Iowa State
Elizabeth Kitley, Virginia Tech
Diamond Miller, Maryland
Alissa Pilli, Utah
Angel Reese, LSU
Maddy Siegrist, Villanova
2023 Wooden Award Finalists
Aliyah Boston, South Carolina
Cameron Brink, Stanford
Caitlin Clark, Iowa
Mackenzie Holmes, Indiana
Maddy Siegrist, Villanova
