Why Gamecocks veteran Victaria Saxton will return for a fifth year with USC
Victaria Saxton will run it back with South Carolina women’s basketball, and she’s looking to improve her game by taking a fifth year with the Gamecocks.
Saxton said she had many conversations with USC head coach Dawn Staley, as well as her mother, to help determine her future.
“(It was) just thinking about what’s best for me,” Saxton told The State. “Whether it was going to the (WNBA) draft and seeing where it takes me or coming back to make myself better.”
Saxton was a senior for the 2021-22 campaign and could have opted for the WNBA draft this year. She also had the option to return for a fifth season thanks to eligibility relief given by the NCAA for players because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s more just trying to come back and work on myself on the offensive side,” Saxton said.
The 6-foot-2 forward out of Rome, Georgia averaged 5.8 points on 50.3% shooting with 5.8 rebounds in the 2021-22 season. She also tallied 48 blocks and 26 steals.
Saxton was a key piece of the Gamecocks’ 2022 national championship run. She averaged 6.8 points and 9.0 rebounds in this season’s NCAA tournament, including an 11-point, 11-rebound double-double in the Elite Eight win over Creighton.
Staley has been outspoken about Saxton’s importance as a leader and unsung hero on the Gamecocks’ squad. Saxton has been a team captain and starter at USC for the last two seasons.
“We don’t get here without Victaria,” Staley said after South Carolina’s Sweet 16 win over UNC. “We don’t. She is Teflon. She takes falls. She gives up weight and girth, quickness. Every game there is something that there is a disadvantage for her, and she is just sheer will.”
The Gamecocks will go into the 2022-23 season with four of their five national champion starters, as point guard Destanni Henderson was drafted to the WNBA’s Indiana Fever. South Carolina is losing three bench players to the transfer portal — freshman guard Saniya Rivers, sophomore guard Eniya Russell and senior forward Elysa Wesolek, as well as graduate guard LeLe Grissett, who has exhausted her eligibility.
USC adds two espnW top 20 recruits next season in Ashlyn Watkins (12) and Talaysia Cooper (18), who were also both McDonald’s All-Americans. Staley also signed former Georgia Tech senior point guard Kierra Fletcher out of the transfer portal to bolster experience on next year’s roster.
