After a yearlong wait and summer health scare, Seventh Woods eager to play for USC
One year.
Seventh Woods knew what he signed up for when he transferred from North Carolina to South Carolina. He knew the promise of more playing time would come paired with the delayed gratification of sitting out a season. Yet he sat, and he waited, and he absorbed as much as he could from his new Gamecocks teammates and head coach Frank Martin.
He knew 2020 would be his moment, his chance for redemption, his opportunity to prove he’s more than the role player he was at UNC.
What Woods didn’t know — couldn’t have known — is that he’d open his 2020 summer in a hospital bed.
When Woods returned to USC’s campus, he came down with a case of rhabdomyolysis after his very first weightlifting session. Typically caused by physical overexertion and dehydration, rhabdomyolysis is the extreme breakdown of muscle tissue, which releases the protein myoglobin into the bloodstream and can cause kidney damage or failure and may even be fatal if not treated quickly.
Woods spent days in the hospital by himself, unable to see loved ones due to COVID-19 restrictions. At that point in time, with the pandemic still evolving in South Carolina and throughout the world, Woods couldn’t be certain if there would be a basketball season or if he would be healthy enough to play in it.
One year of waiting — for this?
“That was probably the toughest thing I’ve dealt with in my life,” Woods, now healthy, said over Zoom on Wednesday. “Being in the hospital and it being COVID and not being able to have people really come in there and check on me, it was tough. It was definitely tough, but my family, my coaches, my close friends, they all kept in close contact with me.
“... And so just being able to talk about it, man, just being able to talk about it now, I’m so blessed to just have a conversation and be out of the hospital.”
Woods is done waiting. Done worrying. Done watching from the sidelines. The redshirt senior is fit and he’s motivated, and he is poised to make a significant contribution to the 2020-21 men’s team.
Every time he’s asked about Woods, Martin gushes about the guard’s progress and practices over the past year, the way he’s carried himself and his work ethic.
“Seventh has been great,” Martin said last week, before the team’s first official practice. “Seventh is — I’m not into predicting — but I think he’s gonna have a real good year.”
Woods’ Gamecocks debut will be a homecoming of sorts, as he grew up in Columbia and won a state title with the Hammond School. Woods gained internet fame as a 14-year-old with a dunk-heavy highlight reel on YouTube that now has 16 million views, but he wasn’t able to seize a starting role for Roy Williams’ Tar Heels. Instead, Woods played behind elite point guards like Joel Berry and Coby White, and he would’ve played behind Cole Anthony had he not transferred prior to his senior season.
While the 6-foot-2, 189-pound guard has never lacked athleticism, he struggled as a shooter at UNC, hitting 34.8% of his shots from the field in his Tar Heel career and scoring 1.8 points per game. He averaged only 8.7 minutes.
That figure should increase substantially at South Carolina, where Woods is getting practice reps at point guard, rotating with the likes of Jermaine Couisnard, A.J. Lawson, Trae Hannibal and T.J. Moss.
Guard play is a strength of Martin’s team, as the young underclassman duo of Lawson and Couisnard led the team in scoring last year with 13.4 and 12.1 points per game, respectively. The addition of Woods should only fortify that group, as he brings years of experience playing for a national title-winning UNC team. Woods goes from being an understudy at North Carolina to a key veteran in Columbia.
“It’s kind of weird, because I’ve always been the young guy,” said Woods, laughing about his newfound status. “Finally, I guess I turned over into being the old guy, being that veteran. It’s kind of weird. A lot of 2000s babies (on the roster). So it’s kind of crazy, actually.”
Lawson, who withdrew from the NBA Draft to return to school, said the Gamecocks will benefit from Wood’s “playmaking ability” and his presence on the court.
“He’s a great point guard, very encouraging, always stays positive, and he’s a good leader,” Lawson said Wednesday. “He has a lot of experience on his shoulders.”
Where exactly Woods fits in the lineup with Lawson, Couisnard and the other guards is not known at the moment — at least not publicly — as all of USC’s guards have rotated positions throughout the first couple of weeks of practice.
But Woods figures to see at least some minutes at point guard, where his experience in running a collegiate offense could give him a competitive edge over his teammates. There aren’t many significant differences between USC’s system and the one Woods played in at UNC, he said, with the biggest one being that USC’s offensive plays require more decision-making from the player with the ball in his hands.
Martin’s defensive scheme lines up perfectly with Woods’ aggressive playing style.
“I feel like I’ve always been a great defender,” Woods said. “We have defensive principles here where you got four guys behind you helping you, so you can press up on the ball way, way more. So I feel like I’ll be able to show that.”
Despite his defensive prowess, Woods will need to show improvement as a shooter to have true staying power, and all indications from the coaching staff are that he’s evolved in that area of the game. The addition of new assistant coach Will Bailey, who is known as a guard guru, could potentially help Woods’ jump shot even more.
More than anything, Woods said he’s made the biggest leap in the mental side of the game. Basketball feels slower to him now. His thoughts on the court are clearer, decisions crisper.
Woods took advantage of his year away, took the time to grow and learn. It wasn’t easy to sit out, nor was it easy lying in a hospital bed and facing the uncertainty of a worldwide pandemic.
But the waiting is over, and given what he’s been through over the past year, Woods couldn’t be more grateful to be back on a basketball court.
“I feel great, healthy, I feel like my weight is where it should be. I’m just happy to be out on the court, and I’m eager,” Woods said.
“It’s a blessing to really be able to come back home, to be able to still have that love at home and just be able to put on a South Carolina jersey, man.”
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 7:06 PM.
