South Carolina women’s basketball without top two bench players vs. Kentucky, UGA
South Carolina women’s basketball will be without its top two players off the bench in its next two games at Kentucky and Georgia.
Junior forward Laeticia Amihere and sophomore center Kamilla Cardoso are both away from the Gamecocks while they compete with their respective national teams in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 Qualifying Tournament, USC head coach Dawn Staley said Wednesday.
The tournament’s event window runs Feb. 6-13, with games played Feb. 10-13. Both Amihere and Cardoso are set to be back for the Gamecocks’ Feb. 17 home game against Auburn.
Amihere is competing for Canada in a four-team tournament held in Osaka, Japan. Cardoso represents Brazil, which will be competing in a four-team tournament held in Belgrade, Serbia. The top three teams from each tournament qualify for the 12-team FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup, which will be held in Australia from Sept. 22-Oct. 1.
Staley said she had conversations with both Amihere and Cardoso during their recruitment about stepping away to play with their national teams.
“They are a big part of their national teams’ success,” Staley said. “When any of our players have an opportunity to play on their national teams, we said, ‘We are not going to hold you back from doing that.’ Obviously, they both want to be on the 2024 Olympic teams, and this is a big week, a big tournament that helps them help their cause.”
Amihere and Cardoso are the Gamecocks’ top two reserves, averaging the sixth- and seventh-most minutes for South Carolina this season.
Cardoso, a transfer from Syracuse, has grown more comfortable in the Gamecocks’ system through SEC play, averaging 7.6 points and 6.0 rebounds per conference game with 14 blocked shots. Amihere is averaging 5.8 points and 3.0 rebounds per game in SEC action, with five blocks.
Staley said there will likely be “some type of transition” playing without Amihere and Cardoso for the next two games. She said graduate LeLe Grissett and freshman Sania Feagin are two players who may see more minutes with their absences.
“We’ve got a number of people that we can fill in,” Staley said. “It’ll be a lot different than having (Amihere) and Kamilla, but different doesn’t always mean a bad thing. Different is we’re smaller, we’re quicker. We’ve probably got more downhill drives versus back to the basket, especially with LeLe. We can go a number of ways.”
South Carolina travels to play Kentucky in Lexington on Thursday before continuing on a road trip to Athens to play Georgia on Sunday.
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 3:28 PM.
