Cardinal’s concerns centered on containing 6-foot-5 Wilson
DALLAS — Roscoe Wilson played professional basketball in Europe for a decade, during which time his favorite music was Steely Dan’s 1977 album “Aja.”
“He said if he ever had a daughter, he would name her Aja, and he added the apostrophe,’’ that daughter said. “I love it. It’s unique. It fits me because I feel I’m a unique person.”
A’ja (pronounced like Asia) Wilson, South Carolina’s talented 6foot-5 center, is one of five finalists for the Wooden Award to the top player in women’s college basketball. The two-time SEC Player of the Year, who came in second to Washington’s Kelsey Plum on Thursday for the Associated Press’ Player of the Year, was one of last year’s Wooden finalists, too.
Wilson is the one whom Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer is sure
to order double-teams against in Friday’s first semifinal in the Final Four. Four-time defending national champion UConn plays Mississippi State in the second semi.
Both the semifinals and Sunday’s final are sold out at the 19,952-seat American Airlines Center.
Wilson dominates the paint like few other players in the game. She averages 17.9 points and 7.4 rebounds. In the NCAA Tournament, she’s scoring 19.8 points per game on 62.8 percent shooting. “She’s the proverbial load,” VanDerveer said. “You’ve got to work really hard to play against her.”
South Carolina has both its women’s and men’s teams in the Final Four, the 13th school to do so. The women’s program’s only other appearance in the Final Four came two years ago, when the Gamecocks lost to Notre Dame in the semifinals on a last-second shot.
“I know what it’s like to lose here at the Final Four,” Wilson said. “That’s something I want to tell my teammates. I don’t want them to feel the way that I felt.”
Wilson initially rebuffed her father’s efforts to get her into basketball when she was 11. When she gave in, her dad was with her every step of the way, she said.
“I have to credit my mom, too,” she said. “She still kept me a girlie girl.”
Wilson was the nation’s top high school player as a senior at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in Columbia, S.C. The recruiting process was discomforting, she said. “At that time, I wasn’t really a talkative person. The coaches wanted to talk to you, and I really didn’t want to talk.”
She went with the Gamecocks mainly because of head coach Dawn Staley’s experience not only as a coach but as a college and Olympic player. Plus, the campus is just 20 minutes from Wilson’s home.
“It was the best fit for me, and it just happened to be in my backyard,’’ Wilson said. “That made it 10 times better.”
She’d like to be a TV analyst of college basketball someday, after another year of college and a WNBA career.
In the meantime, for Stanford, she’s the biggest obstacle to a date in the final, probably with UConn.
“She can finish well down low,” Stanford forward Erica McCall said. “She finishes well with her left hand. So I’m definitely going to need some help from my teammates, but I think we can take on the challenge.”