Five questions for South Carolina women's basketball heading into the offseason
A'ja Wilson is gone.
Well, she's not actually gone. She still has a few weeks left in South Carolina before heading to New York City for the WNBA draft, then likely Las Vegas to start her professional career, and she will almost certainly be around on social media, tweeting at Dawn Staley and her former teammates for years to come.
But as far as on the court, Wilson will never play for USC again, and the Gamecocks have seven months or so to figure out who they are without the best player in program history. Here are five of the biggest questions they have to answer.
Who's coming back?
Only two players, A'ja Wilson and Lindsey Spann, participated in this season's senior night on Feb. 22 against LSU, but two more could, potentially, have played their final games at South Carolina.
Senior guard Bianca Cuevas-Moore never played this year with a knee injury, but Staley said several weeks ago that the former McDonald's All-American hasn't yet decided if she'll take a medical redshirt and come back or decide she doesn't want to stick around for a fifth year. She wasn't on the bench for any of the Gamecocks' NCAA Tournament games, and Staley's explanation that she was taking time off to rest and rehab her knee doesn't really make sense considering the first two rounds were at home.
Then, redshirt junior forward Alexis Jennings, who played her first season at USC this year after transferring to Kentucky, said after Monday's loss that she has yet to decide if she'll return, a surprising announcement considering she would certainly be the featured forward on next year's team.
The good news for South Carolina is that guard Doniyah Cliney, who joined the team alongside Wilson and Cuevas-Moore but sat out her freshman year, confirmed after Monday's game that she will be returning next year.
Who's coming in?
If both Cuevas-Moore and Jennings decide to leave, South Carolina will have just 10 players on its roster for 2018-2019, counting the two incoming freshmen Dawn Staley has signed. Considering the team's recent experiences with injuries ravaging its rotation, it's obvious that 10 athletes to start the season isn't enough.
Staley almost certainly won't use the full 15 scholarships available to her under NCAA rules — few top programs do. But she likely willhit the transfer market hard, as many coaches have increasingly done over the past few years.
Last year, Lindsey Spann and Te'a Cooper committed to South Carolina in late May and early June. Spann was able to step in immediately as a graduate transfer until she injured her knee, while Cooper's saga seeking a hardship waiver consumed half the season, but Staley needs depth too much not to try if either Cuevas-Moore or Jennings leaves.
Who replaces A'ja Wilson?
This is a two-parter. On one hand, Wilson's production level of 22 points, 11 rebounds and 3 blocks per game will be gone next year, and that's a big void that needs to be filled by several people. No one player can replace Wilson, but if Jennings returns, she will be asked to shoulder a lot of it, and Staley has talked about Mikiah Herbert Harrigan turning into an All-American talent.
At the same time, Wilson was also the face of the program and its emotional core. She had a vocal style of leadership and a natural charisma that made it easy to rally around her, and there's no obvious replacement for that currently on the roster. Veterans like Jennings, Cliney, Herbert Harrigan and point guard Tyasha Harris are all on the quieter side, at least publicly.
Will the Gamecocks be guard-focused?
For the first time in years, it seems that South Carolina's returning guard depth will vastly outweigh that of its frontcourt. Bianca Jackson, Harris, Cooper, Cliney and incoming freshman Destanni Henderson could all, conceivably, start, and if Cuevas-Moore decides to come back, that's six quality players who will have to split three, maybe four, spots.
On the other hand, the for-sure returning forwards are Mikiah Herbert Harrigan, Lele Grissett and LaDazhia Williams, along with incoming freshman Victaria Saxton. Williams barely played this past season, Grissett spent the latter half as more of a wing than a post, and Saxton is relatively undersized at 6-foot-1. Having Jennings come back would improve things, but even if she does, there's not a lot of quality depth there.
The last vestiges of the era when Alaina Coates and A'ja Wilson formed twin towers in the low post are now officially over and done with in Columbia. The question is whether Staley will adjust her offense to become a bombs-away 3-point attack or remain primarily focused on pounding the ball inside. This past year, the Gamecocks ranked 303rd in the NCAA in 3-pointers per game, but they shot the ball at a 34.1 percent clip, good for 78th in the country.
When will Dawn Staley's lawsuit with Missouri AD Jim Sterk end?
Staley is going to have a busy offseason as she leads the U.S. national team in international competition for the first time, starting in April with a friendly and culminating in the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup this September in the Canary Islands.
There's also distinctly less fun business for her to attend to, as Staley's defamation lawsuit against Missouri AD Jim Sterk is still pending. The two parties have a deadline of Sept. 20, just two days before the World Cup, to file proof of ADR in Richland County court. If they cannot agree to a solution in mediation, the case will go to trial, which would drag out everything there is to know in this very public spat between rival SEC coaches and athletics directors.
Given the deliberate pace at which the judicial system can work, the suit could even drag into next season, potentially resulting in the awkward situation of South Carolina and Missouri facing each other in a game with a lot of bad blood and off-court drama.
This story was originally published March 28, 2018 at 5:54 PM with the headline "Five questions for South Carolina women's basketball heading into the offseason."