South Carolina women's basketball: How did a rebuilding season turn into the nation's best team?

South Carolina Women’s Basketball: News • Recruiting • Schedule • Roster • Stats • SEC Standings • NCAA Polls • Scholarship Chart

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The 2022-23 South Carolina Gamecocks were one of the best teams in program history. The defending national champions had Aliyah Boston, the best player in the country and soon-to-be first pick in the WNBA Draft and Rookie of the Year. The entire starting lineup was selected in the WNBA draft.

They blazed through the regular season with a perfect record and added a SEC Tournament title in Greenville. Then they cruised to the Final Four. Boston and the Freshies, her fellow 2019 signing class, were ready to cement the Gamecocks as a dynasty. They had made the Final Four every season available, won a national championship, and finished with another consensus number one ranking.

But the dream season ended with a shocking loss to Iowa in the national semifinals. The dynasty was over before it started, the naysayers claimed.

Except it wasn’t.

South Carolina had its streak of 38 consecutive weeks atop the AP poll, the second-longest streak in history, snapped when the Gamecocks were ranked sixth in the preseason poll. Then the games began, and by the next week, South Carolina was back on top.

The Gamecocks have roared through the season. They routed ranked opponents Notre Dame and Maryland and held off North Carolina and Utah. The ceiling is so high that, after consecutive wins of nearly 20 points to open SEC play, Dawn Staley ripped her team for not playing up to program standards.

Despite replacing half the roster and two-thirds of the production from last season, South Carolina boasts the nation’s best offense and best defense and is once again the favorite to claim the national title.

How did this happen? How did a rebuilding season turn into possibly the best team in program history?

Recruiting
Let’s start with the most obvious factor: recruiting. Somehow over the last season, the narrative took hold that the Freshies were the outlier and that Staley couldn’t recruit. When they left, there would be nothing but scrubs left behind.

The strangest part of that narrative was that Gamecock fans drove it. And, it was completely and demonstrably untrue.

South Carolina only signed one player Eniya Russell, in 2020 because few players wanted to sit behind the Freshies. But since then, it has been one elite class after another. The top-ranked 2021 class included three of the top five players and makes up the bulk of this season’s squad (although Saniya Rivers would transfer to NC State). 

The 2022 class was ranked seventh, and the 2023 class was ranked second. Given the production from players like Ashlyn Watkins, MiLaysia Fulwiley, and Tessa Johnson, those classes now look underrated. 

The 2024 class is again ranked second and includes the second-ranked overall prospect and second-ranked point guard and post.

Staley has convinced recruits to come be part of something bigger than themselves. You may sit for a season or two, but your time will come. When it does, you’ll be ready to succeed. 

“We’re talented,” Staley said. “The cupboards weren’t bare. The experience was bare.”

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The Transfer Portal
High school recruiting has formed the program’s base, but South Carolina has been very effective – and selective – in the transfer portal.

The Athletic published an anonymous player survey during last season’s tournament, and one of the quotations was about which coach players would most like to play for. Dawn Staley was the overwhelming favorite, receiving 49 votes. There were a total of 40 votes combined for every other coach.

South Carolina hasn’t gotten everyone it went after, but Staley’s reputation among players helps her cherry-pick from the portal. In the last four years, South Carolina has added Kamilla Cardoso, Kierra Fletcher, and Te-Hina Paopao among others. All are high-character players who mesh with the Gamecocks’ existing chemistry and fill a need.

Only three players on this season’s roster are transfers (Cardoso, Paopao, and Sakima Walker), but Cardoso and Paopao are both on national player of the year watch lists.

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Culture
It’s the “Je ne sais quois.” It’s the thing struggling programs harp on and successful programs never have to. It’s how Staley convinces McDonald’s All-Americans to come sit on the bench for a season or two or sacrifice individual stats for team wins. It’s why Paopao takes the loss to Iowa personally even though she was still at Oregon when it happened.

You could call it “success begets success.” The players past and present have taken ownership of the program. All those players who weren’t playing were still learning what it takes to win a championship from the players ahead of them.

And it’s chemistry. In the 2018-19 season, Staley learned the hard way she can’t just assemble talent. She has to assemble personalities that will mesh, including families. 

It’s why Aliyah Boston’s mother still reaches out to current players to offer encouragement. It’s also why Ashlyn Watkins’ mother invited the other parents to a casual lunch before the Maryland game, even though she didn’t realize that meant about a dozen Samoans were going to show up.

“In Samoan culture we have really big families and we always roll deep,” Paopao said, laughing that her family needed its own table

That’s why, when the players returned to Columbia from their summer breaks, Paopao brought her new teammates garnet and black kukui nut necklaces, a Samoan symbol of thankfulness and gratitude.

Luck
South Carolina’s successful reload also required something even the best coaches can’t control – luck. 

The pieces all fit. The coaches figured out the rotation before the season. There haven’t been any serious injuries. And the players enjoy playing together.

Last week, Watkins was asked about the secret to the Gamecocks’ success.

“I don’t think it’s a secret. We just all click,” she said. “We all just click – I don’t know how to explain it – off the court and on the court. We hang out off the court all the time. It’s like we’re more than teammates.”

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