South Carolina women's basketball: Maryam Dauda has found her joy
Maryam Dauda is happy to be here. She’s happy to be in Columbia. Happy to be a student at South Carolina, happy to be a Gamecock, and most of all happy to be playing in her first NCAA Tournament. She’s just happy.
Dauda spent three years at Arkansas, her home-state program. She missed her first season with an injury, but by her redshirt sophomore season, Dauda was a starter playing 30 minutes per game and leading the SEC in blocks in conference games.
Still, the feeling wasn’t right. Dauda has nothing negative to say about her years at Arkansas, but it’s clear she’s in a better place.
“I’m a lot more happier,” she said. “I feel like I’m on a team where everybody just wants to win. You don’t have a person that’s like, oh, I wanna win or whatever. Collectively everybody’s wanting to win and just get to the next game.”
A lot of players wouldn’t be happy going from a season where they started every game and averaged nearly 30 minutes, to one where they racked up DNPs and averaged only six minutes, often only playing in garbage time.
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Not Dauda. Playing isn’t everything. The love and support from teammates and coaches is.
“It’s been everything I hoped it would be and more,” Dauda said. “I’m just taking one game at a time and just being in the present and just taking everything in and learning as I’m going. I’m learning from my teammates and learning from my coaches and just taking everything in.”
Arkansas made the NCAA tournament in Dauda’s first season and lost its first round game against Utah in Austin, TX. That was nothing compared to checking in to her first tournament game on Friday.
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“Excited, more relieved, I should say,” Dauda said after the game. “I just feel free, just going out there and playing, but I feel excited. I’m just moving on to the next round.”
In the fourth quarter against Tennessee Tech, every Gamecock except Dauda had scored. Dawn Staley put Dauda in the game. Everyone knew she needed a bucket, including Dauda. She wasn’t going to force anything, but her teammates were.
“I think it happened because we were kind of talking about it on the bench,” Dauda said. “I was like, let it just flow and I don’t want anybody to force it. Then (MiLaysia Fulwiley) just kind of saw the opportunity to pass me the ball and it just happened.”
Dauda will graduate with a degree in economics this spring. She is eligible for the WNBA Draft, or could transfer again, but Dauda doesn’t want to mess with a good thing.
“I’m definitely coming back for sure,” Dauda said. “I’m coming back for sure.”
She hopes to start her own international fashion line someday, and a master’s degree in economics would help her achieve that.
“Yes, that’s the goal,” she said. “That’s still the goal. but wherever that takes me, it takes me.”
Right now it’s taking her to the Sweet 16 in Birmingham.
