- Lisa Leslie is one of the greatest centers to ever play women's college and professional basketball.
- The WNBA legend said South Carolina star Aliyah Boston is one of the most dominant bigs in the game.
Aliyah Boston is one of the most dominant bigs in basketball, according to one of the foremost legends of the women's game.
Lisa Leslie — the Hall of Famer who won two championships and earned three MVP awards over her illustrious WNBA career — was pretty unstoppable herself back in her college days. The USC Trojans legend was so great, in fact, that the annual award for NCAA women's stars at the center position was named in her honor in 2018.
It's safe to say Leslie knows dominance when she sees it. And when it comes to the South Carolina superstar — who won the prestigious Lisa Leslie Award each of her first three years with the Gamecocks and may very well be on her way to a fourth this season — she certainly sees it.
"Well, I'm not at liberty to say [who won the 2022-23 honor], but I can tell you that someone has really stamped their name in this space for quite some time," Leslie told Insider. "Obviously the elephant in the room is Aliyah Boston — I mean, her numbers speak for themselves, and it's been tough for anybody else to really break in that category, in that position."
Like some others keeping their eyes on women's college basketball this season, Leslie has mulled over whether the award named in her honor should go to "somebody else" because the South Carolina senior has "gotten it enough." Four other players — Indiana's Mackenzie Holmes, Iowa's Monika Czinano, Mississippi State's Jessika Carter, and Virginia Tech's Elizabeth Kitley — are all still in the running for the Hoophall award, and all four have a legitimate case to earn the honor.
But ultimately, Leslie falls into the camp that says "you just gotta reward the best player" — even if that best player has won the award back to back to back.
"If the numbers show and reflect that she's the best, then she's the best," Leslie said. "And if that's what happens four years in a row, then that's what happens.
"But we're definitely gonna be fair no matter what and make sure that we're looking at everybody who's deserving there," she added. "We're down to the five finalists, so we'll see."
As four of those five stars continue their journeys through this year's March Madness, Leslie — who coaches the Triplets BIG3 team — offered some advice on how to overcome the obstacles they may face as they continue through the NCAA tournament. When facing a deficit, she suggested that players focus on "something specific and tangible" they can do to turn the game around instead of "looking at it on a macro level."
"Let's get it within 10," Leslie said as an example. "We have three minutes to really play our best defense and work hard together. Let's get one stop and a rebound and then let's go down offensively and really execute our offense and crash the boards."
It's a similar message to the one Leslie is emphasizing through her Ultimate Comeback Pick-Me-Up campaign with Mucinex: Rather than letting oneself get bogged down by the magnitude of a problem at hand, just "break it down" into more manageable components, she said.
"The beautiful thing about talking in a huddle to players is it's really about life," she said. "'This is where we are, but this is not where we have to stay in this moment, and we can overcome anything.' So having that heart, that faith, that fight, and that belief is gonna be really important."