"Just soak it all in" - South Carolina's freshmen experience their first Final Four
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While this season has been a year-long celebration of everything the “Freshies,” South Carolina’s 2019 signing class, has accomplished, the 2022 signing class has had a much different experience.
Talaysia Cooper, Ashlyn Watkins, and midseason enrollee Chloe Kitts had been open about the challenges of adjusting to college. They went from being stars in high school to playing 45 minutes combined in the NCAA tournament.
“It’s not what I thought it would be like, honestly,” said Watkins, the only player of the group that has played outside of the final minutes of the game.
“It’s not easy, but it’s a learning process,” Cooper said. “While I’ve got the seniors here, learn from them.”
“I’m still trying to figure stuff out,” Kitts said. “Eventually it will be everything I hoped it would be, but not yet.”
That was a recurring theme from all three players – learn from the seniors.
“They really take all the freshmen and really help us,” Watkins said.
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While they are learning, they also have to practice patience. It isn’t easy to sit for most of a game and then spring into action for a couple of minutes near the end.
So they stay patient, do their best to stay focused, and try to soak up everything they can.
“I ask questions of all the seniors and they give me good answers,” Cooper said. “I’m really an observer: I sit back and learn.”
“I just had to learn patience,” Watkins said. “I know the starting five and everybody else is more experienced than I am. So I just have to stay focused and stay ready, be attentive.”
The reward for the patience will hopefully pay off next season after the seven seniors depart. Cooper, Kitts, and Watkins could all be in line to start, and if they don’t start they should at least be key parts of the rotation.
“It’s preparing me,” Cooper said. “We have the best senior team that can prepare us. We have to take that into consideration.”
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Until then, they get to enjoy a trip to the Final Four and hopefully a national championship.
“It’s great,” Kitts said. “I’m very excited to be here with my team.”
“It definitely makes it worthwhile because this is a great team and I get to experience things like this,” Watkins said.
On Thursday most of the players were wearing Final Four cowboy hats they received as part of their gift bags. The team has also visited AT&T Stadium and a gift suite. All of the outside stuff could be a distraction, but Cooper isn’t worried.
“They did it last year,” she shrugged. “It’s just a repeat.”
