Thanksgiving tourney helped Gamecocks bond ‘like camp.’ Now they head to Temple
A week has passed since South Carolina women’s basketball upset then-No. 2 Baylor, ending its Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S. Virgin Islands on a high note.
But the Gamecocks are still reaping the benefits from that trip as they prepare to travel to a far colder, though still familiar, territory Saturday — Philadelphia, the hometown of coach Dawn Staley — to face Temple.
“When you’re on the road with a trip like that, it’s like camp,” USC assistant coach Fred Chimel said. “You’re stuck, there’s nobody else around, and you’re kinda forced to talk to people you don’t normally talk to, eat with people all the time. So you spend a lot of time with people, and during the time you can figure out whether you got some chemistry there or not.
“And they did a fantastic job. Our players are meshed together very well. They handle every situation. Three games in three days is a lot of work, but they did a fantastic job prepping for each one of those games, the last one in particular they did a fantastic job for.”
The Paradise Jam pushed the young Gamecocks team in several ways. Starting off with a surprising loss to Indiana, followed by a win over a feisty Washington State and closed by that dominant finish over Baylor, the tourney also marked an emotional homecoming for star freshman forward Aliyah Boston. But as Staley remarked in the immediate aftermath and Chimel echoed, it brought the squad together.
Now the challenge will be keeping everyone focused and in sync as USC goes from playing three games in three days to four over the next three weeks, with exams and the holiday break threatening to knock the Gamecocks off their rhythm.
“It’s about details, it’s about the little things, making them do every little thing that we tell them to do, we want them to execute in the course of open play. It can break down a little bit if you don’t stay on top of it,” Chimel said of the next few weeks. “Practice with coach Staley ... she’s a stickler for the details, so we don’t let it break down too much, stay on top of them. And she has a good feel for this team, so when they’re not on top of their game, she’ll get them there one way or another.”
In Philly, South Carolina will face an Owls program Staley guided for eight seasons, in the city where she grew up. The emotion of the game, however, likely won’t compare to the team’s visit in 2017, when Staley had a street named in her honor, took part in the jersey retirement of one of her Temple players, Candice Dupree, and got her 232nd win at South Carolina, a program record.
The game itself, though, wasn’t all that competitive, and that repeated itself last year at Colonial Life Arena, where the Gamecocks crushed the Owls 88-60. Saturday’s contest is expected to be more of the same, with the Owls sitting at 5-4 and ranked 129th in the nation in scoring offense and 216th in scoring defense, compared to 17th and eighth, respectively, for South Carolina.
Next
Who: No. 6 South Carolina (8-1) vs. Temple (5-4)
When: 3 p.m. Saturday
Where: McGonigle Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Watch: Streaming online on OwlsTV
Listen: 107.5 FM in Columbia area
This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 5:18 PM with the headline "Thanksgiving tourney helped Gamecocks bond ‘like camp.’ Now they head to Temple."
