Aliyah Boston Has Lost Her Accent, but Not Her Determination

NASHVILLE — There are times when Aliyah Boston opens her mouth and is mortified by what comes out. There is no island lilt. There is no bounce in her cadence. Her tongue doesn’t roll off her tongue. Never is never, not ever.

She sounds so … American.

“Yeah, it’s embarrassing,” Boston said. “All my family can turn their accent on and off. I can’t do that. And they think I’m an embarrassment to our family because I can’t do that.”

Boston giggles as she explains.

She is proud to have been born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. But she also knows that she may not be here — starring for the top-ranked University of South Carolina women’s basketball team and a national player of the year candidate — had she not left the island with her older sister Alexis when she was 12 and moved to the United States, where basketball has opened a world of possibilities.

The sisters moved in to their two-bedrooom apartment, Worcester, Mass., with Jenaire and Kira Hodge, their aunt. This meant that they had to wear parkas for most of the year, as well as dark winters. It also gave Aliyah the opportunity to play basketball. She was exposed to better coaching, more competition, and had a better chance of getting a college coach to see her.

Boston was 15 the first time Coach Dawn Staley of South Carolina saw her play, at a tournament in which Boston’s team lost every game. Staley liked her agility, size and the way she talked to her teammates, but what struck the coach was Boston’s determination to keep going. “She was dog tired and, you know, bigs, when they get tired, just stop,” Staley said. “I vividly remember her never stopping. Even now, I see her and that’s who she is.”

Staley stated that Boston’s quality speaks more broadly to Boston. She just keeps going.

Boston, 20, a junior who is a relentless player around the basket, has led South Carolina to an East regional semifinal against North Carolina in Greensboro. N.C., where she has extended her double-figure streak of points and rebounds up to 26 games. She is also eighth in blocked shots in the country. South Carolina will be seeking its second national championship. It won the 2017 title.

“She always seems aware of what she wants her legacy to be even from a very young age, and that’s uncommon,” said Staley, who noted that their conversations have always felt adult to adult. “She knows what she wants; she’s unafraid to ask questions. You can pour into somebody a lot more when they’re like that than when you’re trying to figure out: ‘What is that scowl on your face? What is that blank look?’ With Aliyah, she leaves nothing for you to assume.”

And so it made perfect sense when Boston’s parents, Cleone and Al, explained to Aliyah, who was entering seventh grade, and Alexis, who was entering ninth grade, that they would be moving to live with their aunt, Cleone’s sister. There were no tears of sadness about what they were leaving behind.

“I just thought of it as an exciting adventure,” Boston said.

As it turned out, it was not exactly both parents’ idea. The girls were sent to their aunt to attend a basketball camp that summer. Al took Cleone along to shop for beds for their growing daughters while they were away. He was advised to wait, but she didn’t stop him from purchasing them. She informed him a few weeks later that the girls would not be returning.

“Mom and her sister colluded,” Al said. “They kept me out of the loop.”

“Terrible, terrible,” he added. “I can smile now.”

Said Cleone: “I had to pray a lot and hope God worked on his heart. He couldn’t see us not having the girls at that age.”

Ultimately, Al acceded because the plan had always been to use sports — Aliyah eventually chose basketball over tennis — to land a college scholarship on the mainland. Alexis played at N.A.I.A. Thomas University this season, where she is completing a master’s degree.) The father would awaken the girls at dawn every Saturday to teach them the game and then take them outside to practice on outdoor courts. (Indoor courts are very rare and many of them were damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017.

Boys and girls could play together in organized basketball because there were only so many children. “Parents would be in the stands and they wouldn’t want their sons to be outworked by a girl, so the boys tried to get physical with me,” said Boston, who towered over most boys then and has grown into a 6-foot-5 forward who relishes contact. “That’s why I started to love it the most.”

The girls maintained regular contact with their parents in Worcester. They had daily video calls, every-other-month visits, and persistent negotiations over whose rules they would be required to follow — their auntie Jenaire’s or their parents’. Their aunt loved to talk about matters, such as sleepovers or sleeping in Saturday night; their parents enjoyed issuing orders.

“I believe in a powerful voice,” said Cleone, whose daughters once woke up to find her in the living room, having flown to Boston to make sure they were washing the dishes, taking out the trash and doing whatever chores were needed to help their aunt, a single mother who was a running a catering business. “I’m a lot quicker to discipline than I am to talk. But I’ve evolved. I learned a lot from my sister.”

Boston sought comfort from her parents earlier this season.

Staley was furious when South Carolina beat Buffalo in an early-season game at the Bahamas. She had 23 points and 7 boards. She wanted more.

“It wasn’t dominating; it was ‘you’re bigger than everybody else,’” Staley said. “I know I hurt her, but I wasn’t afraid to hurt her for where she needed to go. You sometimes have to poke your daughter. She was like, ‘I don’t know what you want when you tell me to dominate?’ And I said I want them to stop using that clip.”

Ah, that is a great clip.

One of the enduring images of last season’s women’s tournament was Boston collapsing in tears after she missed a last-second put-back that would have sent South Carolina into the championship game. Stanford won, 66 to 65, after the ball rolled off of the rim.

“It happened,” Boston says now. “I can’t change it.”

After the game, Alexis and her parents gave her a hug. But Boston also received a text from someone who could understand the heartbreak — Tim Duncan, who, in 2013, missed a late shot and a tip-in that would have tied Game 7 of the N.B.A. Finals. Duncan, who had said that he would be haunted forever by the misses at the time, found some peace when he helped San Antonio win its title.

Duncan, who grew-up on St. Croix nearby, repeated what Staley had suggested to her: “How many players would even have been in position for failure?” As Stanford was trying to end the clock, Boston had seized the ball from Stanford at midcourt. Brea Beal was ahead of her, and her transition layup rolled off he rim. Boston, who had hustled to chase down the play was there for tip.

“Now probably if it’s me, after I gave it up I’m watching the play develop,” Staley said. “Again, she just keeps going.”

Boston, who is prone to dancing and is bubbly, was not there to give the pick-me-ups. Her dyed braids are now orange with hints white and gold and her shoes could be any color in a rainbow. “If she sees someone in a bad mood, it’s ‘Oh, do you want popcorn?’” said Beal, who lives with Boston. “Those little things make a big difference in how someone’s day goes.”

After losing 23 pounds, she is proud of how she looks. “She’s showing more skin,” Staley said with a laugh.

The weight loss was part of a summer in which she worked with Duncan on reading the game from the post — the fruits of which were on display in a Southeastern Conference tournament win over Arkansas. After Boston received a block on the block, she waited to see how defense would react. She then took a couple of dribbles, showed off an Hakeem Olajuwon Dream Shake and dropped in a Big Fundamental-esque jump hook over her left shoulder — an accent to her game that feels pitch perfect.