A Brief, Helpful Guide To A’ja Wilson’s Dominance

DALLAS—A’ja Wilson, South Carolina’s 6’5 heartbeat and best remaining player in the NCAA Tournament, doesn’t lead the country in any major statistical category.

But the player coach Dawn Staley repeatedly touted for player of the year awards at every opportunity has her Gamecocks 40 minutes from a national title for two simple reasons: she does everything well. And there doesn’t appear to be any way to stop her.

“Number one, she’s very active,” Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer, tasked with finding an answer to Wilson in Sunday night’s championship game, said on Saturday. “She’s physical. She’s not going to stop working. She’s a constant worker. Just a competitor. She wants to be in the moment. She wants the big shot. But if she doesn’t take it, she’s going to go clean it up… Because of her competitive spirit, because of how hard she plays, just makes her even harder to deal with because she’s got a skill set to go with it. It is multi-dimensional.”

Much has been made of the way South Carolina has weathered the loss of Alaina Coates, their senior big who paired with Wilson all season. And part of the reason is the emergence of Kaela Davis, to be sure. But if Wilson couldn’t do so many things well, play the part of bother herself and Coates, South Carolina wouldn’t be here.

Let’s break it down: she scores, and efficiently. She’s 31st in the country in points per 40 minutes, at 25.0, just ahead of Michigan State’s Tori Jankoska and Louisville’s Asia Durr, two ball-dominant guards. She doesn’t force it, though: battling double-teams all year, Wilson still rankes 25th in the country in true shooting percentage, at 64.2 percent, ahead of players like Katie Lou Samuelson.

She rebounds with the best in the country as well, with those numbers ticking up in Coates’ absence this March. Against Stanford, for instance, she collected 19 rebounds, eight offensive, on a night when the Gamecocks weren’t hitting perimeter shots and Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer created a defensive gameplan around stopping Wilson specifically.

That’s only half the battle, though, not that it kept Wilson from 13 points on 5-for-11 shooting to have two defenders on her at all times, and a third cheating down from the perimeter on post touches. There’s the fact that Wilson’s block percentage is up over eight percent, yet her steal percentage is 2.5 percent—in layman’s terms, she rim protects like an elite big, but gets into passing lanes like a quick guard.

“Yeah, I mean, she’s an All-American,” VanDerveer said after Stanford lost to South Carolina Friday night. “She’s a terrific player. She blocks shots or she changes them. What did she end up with? 19 rebounds? She’s on that glass.”

If Mississippi State knows how to slow down Wilson, they haven’t deployed that strategy yet. In two games this season, both South Carolina victories, Wilson is averaging 20.5 points, nine rebounds, 3.5 blocks, 2.5 steals and an assist.

It’s the culmination of a journey for the program that began when Wilson, the number one player in the country her senior year in high school, elected to stay home in South Carolina and play for Dawn Staley. For the program, it provided “credibility, to say we’re on the rise”, according to Staley.

Now that ascent is nearly complete, and Wilson is at the center of it. She was taking nothing for granted Saturday, but she couldn’t help but imagine what it would mean to bring that trophy home.

“I cannot put it into words how it feels growing up watching a program where you would go and maybe cheer here and there to now we are selling out arenas,” Wilson said. “I cannot go to a grocery store without someone knowing who I am. It is a great feeling knowing that I am doing all of this in my backyard and giving back to the state (South Carolina) because the state has done so much for me I cannot ever repay them enough. It is a great feeling to be doing this at home, and later on I can tell my kids that I was a part of something special here at South Carolina.”