‘I knew the time was coming.’ LeLe Grissett returns to help Gamecocks after injury
LeLe Grissett battled with her mindset for months.
Grissett, who suffered a lower right leg injury in the fourth quarter of South Carolina women’s basketball’s SEC tournament championship win March 7, yearned to get back on the court. She waited for nine months, often reminding her teammates she’d be back soon.
“The road to recovery was pretty hard,” Grissett said. “It was the mindset. I had to just keep pushing, and I knew the time was coming.”
Grissett’s time arrived Sunday, when the Gamecocks’ fifth-year senior made her return late in the first quarter of Sunday’s 66-59 win over Maryland.
Colonial Life Arena’s crowd of 12,862 erupted as Grissett walked onto the court with 30 seconds to go in the first quarter. It was Grissett’s first in-game appearance since she fell at last year’s SEC tournament.
Grissett found one word to describe the emotion around her return: Love.
“When I got in and the crowd went crazy, it was just love,” Grissett said. “They always show love no matter what. It’s a loving family here, and I love the crowd and what they bring. It was great.”
Head coach Dawn Staley said that once Grissett was told she’d be eligible to play Sunday, she showed nerves at practice. Grissett started committing turnovers, and Staley told her it was the rust knocking off.
Staley had a feeling she may see those mistakes creep up as Grissett got back into the groove, but she was pleasantly surprised by her clean performance Sunday.
In nine minutes against Maryland, Grissett put up five points on perfect 2-of-2 shooting from the floor, grabbed four rebounds and recording zero turnovers.
“She brings energy, she brings experience, she brings the intangibles,” Staley said after the Maryland game. “She did the things that she normally does for us, and that’s some of the things that we missed. It’s a certain comfort we have when LeLe’s on the floor.”
Junior guard Zia Cooke said Grissett never took a day off from her recovery. Grissett’s determination made it clear she would be returning sooner than later.
“We all knew she was going to be back, but she made sure she let us know that she was gonna be back,” Cooke said. “She believed in herself, and that’s the thing people on the outside didn’t see.”
Grissett traveled with the Gamecocks following her season-ending injury, watching her teammates make a Final Four run in last year’s NCAA tournament from the bench.
Two weeks after USC’s heartbreaking Final Four loss to Stanford, Grissett, USC’s lone senior, announced she’d be coming back for a fifth year. A top option off the bench averaging 6.7 and 4.2 rebounds last year, Grissett solidified the roster’s full return for this season.
Despite Grissett’s return, the Gamecocks are not fully healthy. Freshman point guard Raven Johnson suffered a season-ending knee injury in South Carolina’s second game of the season, and senior point guard Destanni Henderson remains day-to-day with an injury suffered in the first half against North Carolina A&T on Nov. 29.
While Henderson and Johnson await their returns, Grissett was finally able to take in her comeback Sunday.
“It felt good being back on the court with my teammates,” Grissett said. “The energy they gave just gave me the strength and energy to keep pushing. It just felt good to be back on the court.”
No. 1 South Carolina (10-0) travels to Grissett’s hometown Durham, North Carolina to face No. 19 Duke (8-0) Wednesday. The game tips off at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on ACC Network.
