Aliyah Boston’s redemption – National player of the year delivers NCAA title to South Carolina

MINNEAPOLIS — Do-overs don’t always happen in sports. The shot that bounces off the rim is the stuff of melancholy memories and difficult dreams. For athletes so used to success, the split second that can separate them is anguishing.

For South Carolina Gamecocks post player Aliyah Boston, it served as both motivation and aggravation. In last season’s national semifinals, her putback attempt bounced out as the buzzer sounded, eliminating the Gamecocks with a one-point loss to Stanford. Her painful reaction, doubling over with emotion, has been replayed over and over. Not that Boston wanted or needed to see it ever again.

Now, though, Boston’s national championship with the Gamecocks supersedes any previous disappointment.

With a 64-49 victory on Sunday over UConn in which Boston had 11 points and 16 rebounds for her 29th double-double of the season, South Carolina completed a wire-to-wire race this season as the No. 1 team in women’s college basketball, giving coach Dawn Staley her second NCAA title.

It is the culmination of a year of maturation in which Boston has become the best player in the women’s college game, has improved on all her skills and has realized her voice as a Black woman and a prominent athlete is a gift she wants to use. From the low of that missed shot in San Antonio, Boston was determined she wouldn’t miss her next opportunity at a national championship.

South Carolina’s first title, in 2017, was both a program breakthrough and a do-over of sorts for Staley, who as a player at Virginia went to the women’s Final Four three consecutive years yet didn’t win a championship. The gold medals she earned as a point guard for USA Basketball became a salve. But Staley’s unabashed glee over the Gamecocks’ first national…