Kamilla Cardoso to miss South Carolina's first NCAA Tournament game, LSU players not in danger of supension

There has been plenty of fallout already from the incident involving South Carolina and LSU in the SEC Championship. The issue for the Gamecocks moving forward, though, is what’s still to come for C Kamilla Cardoso.

With Cardoso’s ejection against the Tigers in Greenville, she will be unavailable for the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Her ejection was specifically for fighting. Meanwhile, all the other ejections from the matter were due to players leaving the bench area.

Kim Mulkey confirmed as much in an answer in her postgame press conference regarding her team’s punishment.

“We didn’t have any ejections,” said Mulkey. “They had an ejection. They told me Cardoso was the only one ejected for fighting.”

Flau’jae Johnson intentially fouled MiLaysia Fulwiley after she stole the ball from her with just over two to go. That led to some exchanged words between her, Ashlynn Watkins, and Bree Hall where Johnson would then shove Watkins away. With that, Cardoso came in and pushed Johnson to the floor in an act that only escalated the matter. Both benches cleared while a family member, Johnson’s brother, also jumped down from the stands and over the scorer’s table to take part.

Cardoso left the game after having played in 22 minutes. In that time, she posted eight points, six rebounds, and three blocks. This came a day after she went for 13 points, five rebounds, and three blocks, including a game-winning three, against Tennessee in the semifinals.

Over her senior season at South Carolina, Cardoso is the team’s leader in points, rebounds, and blocks. She averages 14.2 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks while shooting 58.9% from the field.

Cardoso missed four games over the past month for the Gamecocks due to injury. They won those games by an average of 33 points, including one against a Top-12 team in UConn. That would suggest that South Carolina, who is undefeated at 32-0 and set to be the No. 1 overall seed in March Madness, will be fine without her in their opener against a No. 16-seeded opponent.

This wasn’t a good look for any of the involved players at the end of what was a quality matchup between the top two seeds in the SEC Tournament. Still, all things considered, both sides will avoid what could have been a complete disaster for them had the suspensions applied to all of the players who had to head to the locker room early.