29 May 2021
COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina sophomore Aliyah Boston was named the Women’s Basketball Academic All-American of the Year, the College Sports Information Directors of America announced today. She is the first women’s basketball student-athlete to win the award and the second Gamecock to capture the title for their sport.
“This award just means so much,” Boston said. I was blessed to be able to win it because there are so many women out there nominated for it. It’s exciting to see that I was able to do a great job of managing basketball and academics really well. Academics and basketball play hand-in-hand. Being able to play basketball is a blessing from God, but getting a degree is really important. It’s important to have a back-up plan after basketball, knowing that I can fall back on my academics and get a job somewhere outside of basketball.”
Boston is the first First-Team Academic All-American in Gamecock women’s basketball history and the program’s third selection all-time (Martha Parker, 1989 third team; Tiffany Mitchell, 2016 second team). The only other sport Academic All-American of the Year in South Carolina Athletics history was LB Dantzler (2013, baseball). Boston is the first sophomore to be named Women’s Basketball Academic All-American of the Year in the award’s history.
Boston boasts a 3.80 GPA in mass communications to go with a career that has seen her earn All-America honors in both seasons, including unanimous first-team status in 2020-21. The two-time Lisa Leslie Award winner as the best center in the country, she is also a two-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year and First-Team All-SEC selection.
This season, Boston’s 17 double-doubles ranked fifth in the nation and yielded 13.7 points and 11.5 rebounds per game on the season. She was among the nation’s top 20 in rebounds per game (12th), offensive rebounds per game (18th, 4.1) and blocks per game (18th, 2.6). Boston grabbed double-digit rebounds in 23 of her 31 games on the season. Her dominance in the SEC Tournament delivered the Gamecocks’ second-straight title at that event and earned her Tournament MVP honors. She was also named to the NCAA Hemisfair Region All-Tournament Team.