South Carolina enters March Madness without its best bench player. Who might step up
The last time South Carolina women’s basketball lost a key contributor just before the NCAA tournament, things wound up being OK. Center Alaina Coates’ ankle injury didn’t stop the Gamecocks from making a run to a national championship in 2017.
Now, Dawn Staley has to hope history repeats itself, with the news that senior guard LeLe Grissett will have to miss this year’s tourney after suffering a lower leg injury in the SEC tournament championship game.
Unlike Coates, Grissett hasn’t been a starter for the Gamecocks this season. But her absence is no less notable. As USC’s top contributor off the bench, Grissett had developed into Staley’s spark plug, capable of jolting the Gamecocks whenever she entered the game with her defensive intensity and ability to get out in transition. She averaged nearly 20 minutes per game in SEC play, with 6.9 points and 4.1 rebounds per contest.
Without her, the Gamecocks will be limited to seven players who averaged 10 or more minutes this season — the usual starting five of Destanni Henderson, Zia Cooke, Brea Beal, Victaria Saxton and Aliyah Boston, plus reserves Laeticia Amihere and Destiny Littleton.
For Amihere and Littleton, along with freshman guard Eniya Russell, Grissett’s absence marks a moment to step up.
“We’ve been working on a couple of things throughout the week,” Staley said Monday shortly after the NCAA bracket was revealed. “And we’ve been pleasantly surprised with some of the changes that we’ll make. We’ll leave it at that, and once we play (No. 16 seed) Mercer, we’ll unveil what that is.”
At crucial moments this year, Staley deployed the 6-foot-2 Grissett as an oversized wing at the “three” alongside two forwards to give USC a jumbo lineup that could stifle just about anyone with their length. At others, Grissett became a small-ball “four,” and the Gamecocks were able to play at pace with four guards capable of slashing and scoring at the rim.
No one among the trio of Amihere, a 6-foot-4 forward, Littleton, a 5-foot-9 guard, and Russell, a still-learning 6-foot-1 guard, is natural fits to slide in and fill Grissett’s role completely.
“Let’s just say that they all are in a great place. LA, Destiny Littleton, Eniya. They’re all in a great place. They understand who we lost, and the contributions that LeLe gave us,” Staley said. “They want to do their parts, but they can’t be LeLe. They can’t. They just can only be themselves and they can only do what they’re good at, and that’s all we ask them to do, is do what you’re good at, not anything more or less or imitate or emulate.”
Still, Staley reiterated Monday that she likes what she’s seen in practices since Grissett was sidelined. And while she declined to give any hints on what that might look like, she has praised Amihere late in the season for the growth the sophomore has shown.
At the same time, Littleton brings a little NCAA tournament experience to the table. She played 29 minutes in the first round two years ago while at Texas. It’s not a huge amount, but more than all but two players on USC’s roster after last year’s tournament was canceled.
Russell, meanwhile, is probably closest to Grissett in terms of size and skillset, though the team’s lone freshman has gone through growing pains this season.
There’s also the possibility that Grissett’s workload will simply be redistributed among the starting lineup. While Staley has expressed some concern for the heavy minutes Henderson, Cooke and Boston have all played this season, each above 30 per game, the arrival of the NCAA tournament means resting them isn’t much of an option now.
“We’re gonna go with winning in the game. It’s do or die,” Staley said. “We can’t save anything. There are days in between so, you know, this team wants to win. So we got to go with the players that have gotten us here playing as many minutes as they have. Throughout the game, if we’re able to find somebody that will step in and give us some quality minutes, I really don’t mind that. It only helps our basketball team.”
Looking back at that 2017 run, Staley saw Coates’ injury as a testing point of her team’s mental toughness, from which they were able to set themselves up for a deep run. This year, obviously, she’s hoping for the same.
“Do we feel bad that LeLe’s hurt? Absolutely. But then we got to get back on that horse and say OK, let’s figure some things out. ... How do we get her contributions into other people as quickly as possible? So it was great to have this week of practice in which we moved some pieces around. And I hope with a couple of more practices that we’ll continue to attack it and look good doing it, because it did not look bad at all,” Staley said.
NEXT USC BASKETBALL GAME
What: NCAA tournament first round
Who: No. 1 seed South Carolina (22-4, 14-2 SEC) vs. No. 16 seed Mercer (19-6, 10-3 Southern)
When: 6 p.m. Sunday
Where: San Antonio, Texas
Watch: ESPN
