South Carolina’s lone senior to miss NCAA tournament run
As South Carolina women’s basketball prepares to open its run for a Final Four, the Gamecocks will have to do so without their lone senior and top player off the bench.
Guard LeLe Grissett will be out for the entirety of the NCAA tournament while recovering from a lower leg injury, USC coach Dawn Staley confirmed Monday, shortly after the Gamecocks were officially announced as a No. 1 seed in the tourney.
Grissett’s status had been up in the air since she suffered an ankle injury in the championship game of the SEC tournament and returned to the bench wearing a walking boot and using crutches.
Grissett suffered the ankle injury in the fourth quarter of the final of the SEC tournament on March 7. Catching a pass and preparing to drive, she crumpled to the ground and immediately left the game, collapsing to the ground on the sideline.
She went back to the locker room and eventually returned with the boot and crutches. Visibly upset, she was consoled by teammates and later took part in the team’s championship celebrations.
“Any time a young person, you know, the game that they love is snatched away from them for injury or any other reason, they’re devastated,” Staley said. “I’ll tell you this, LeLe took it much like you see LeLe out there playing out the on the floor — super energetic, took the onus off of her and put it back on the team. And she’s gonna be an unofficial coach on our sidelines and she’s gonna get our players to play at maximum effort, just like she did.”
While only starting one game this year, Grissett has been a vital part of the Gamecocks’ 22-4 run. As the team’s sixth woman, she has averaged 6.7 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1 assist per game, providing defensive energy and a combination of speed and size in transition.
Grissett scored a season-high 13 points in her lone start of the year, on Senior Day against Kentucky. That kicked off a stretch of five games before the SEC championship in which she averaged 8.8 points, 5 rebounds and 1.6 assists per contest.
Despite her injury, Grissett will still travel with the Gamecocks to the tournament and sit on the bench, helping out as much as she can.
“LeLe has responded in just such a great way,” sophomore forward Aliyah Boston said. “She just stays talking to us when we’re on the court, telling us what she sees, what she thinks we could do, just giving input here and there and just continue to bring the energy that she brought when when she was able to play with us.”
Without Grissett on the court, though, South Carolina’s top option off the bench will likely be sophomore forward Laeticia Amihere, the only other reserve player to average more than 15 minutes per game. Behind her, junior guard Destiny Littleton has averaged 11.1 minutes, 2.6 points and 2.4 rebounds per game this season.
This story was originally published March 15, 2021 at 7:33 PM.
