Where Talaysia Cooper, other South Carolina WBB transfers are playing this season
As the South Carolina women’s basketball team gears up for a championship repeat tour, a handful of former Gamecocks will be suiting up for other teams this fall.
Coach Dawn Staley and USC, who went 38-0 last year and won their third national championship in eight years, are known for elite recruiting, depth and roster retention.
Still, the Gamecocks aren’t totally immune to the effects of the NCAA transfer portal. Six USC players have left Columbia via the portal over the last three recruiting cycles, and four of them will be playing college basketball elsewhere this season.
As preseason No. 1 South Carolina moves close to its Nov. 4 season opener against Michigan in Las Vegas, here’s an update on what its recent transfer players are up to.
G Talaysia Cooper, Tennessee
Cooper was the lone transfer out of South Carolina before last season’s national championship run. Now, she’ll be suiting up for a conference rival.
Cooper, a 6-foot guard, will be a redshirt sophomore guard for Tennessee this season and see her first playing time with the Vols after sitting out all of last season because she entered the transfer portal outside of the established time frame for basketball.
The talented in-state recruit averaged 2.9 points, 1.8 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 8.4 minutes per game during the Gamecocks’ run to the 2023 Final Four as a true freshman. Before that, Cooper was the South Carolina Gatorade Player of the Year in 2021 and a McDonald’s All-American coming out of East Clarendon High School.
She stuck with Tennessee this offseason despite a coaching change and will be playing for first-year coach Kim Caldwell (who was hired to replace Kellie Harper after her firing). Caldwell described Cooper as “a heck of a player” earlier this fall.
F Sahnya Jah, Arizona
Jah will be playing in the Big 12 this year after she was suspended roughly halfway through her lone season at South Carolina for “conduct detrimental to the team.”
After formally entering the transfer portal this March, Jah committed to Arizona and coach Adia Barnes in April and is listed as a sophomore forward on the roster.
The 6-foot forward from Virginia averaged 3.1 points and 2.0 rebounds per game last season for South Carolina. Jah appeared in 16 games before USC announced in February she was “out indefinitely due to conduct detrimental to the team,” with Staley declining to elaborate further.
Jah did not appear in a game for South Carolina after that discipline and didn’t dress out with the team at home or travel with the Gamecocks to road games.
She joins an Arizona team that made the NCAA Tournament as a No. 11 seed last year and appeared in the national championship game under Barnes in 2021.
G Saniya Rivers, NC State
This one isn’t new: Rivers is headed into her senior season and third season overall at N.C. State in Raleigh after transferring from USC following her freshman season.
After playing in 27 games for USC’s 2022 national championship team, Rivers, a Wilmington, North Carolina native, transferred closer to home and has been excellent for the Wolfpack, who are No. 9 in this year’s preseason AP poll.
The former five-star recruit was the ACC’s Sixth Player of the Year as a sophomore and was an All-ACC First Team and All-Defensive Team honoree as a junior.
Rivers averaged 12.5 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 2.1 steals per game for a Wolfpack squad that knocked off a No. 1 and No. 2 seed to reach the Final Four last year as a No. 3 seed. South Carolina beat N.C. State in the national semifinals.
G/F Eniya Russell, Mississippi State
Russell is on her third SEC school and second since leaving USC.
She’ll be playing for Mississippi State this year and is listed as a 6-foot graduate student guard/forward on this year’s Bulldogs roster.
Russell played two seasons at South Carolina and won a national championship before transferring to Kentucky, where she played two seasons. She averaged a career-high 10.1 points and 3.6 rebounds in 20.7 minutes per game last year.
After Kentucky made a coaching change this offseason, firing Kyra Elzy and ultimately replacing her with Kenny Brooks, Russell transferred to Mississippi State to play her fifth and final year of college basketball.
A veteran of 104 college games, she’ll look to make an impact on a Sam Purcell-coached squad that narrowly missed out on an NCAA Tournament bid last season.
Updates on other USC WBB transfers
Two other players joined Rivers and Russell in transferring from South Carolina following the Gamecocks’ 2021-22 national championship season.
Guard Destiny Littleton played her final season at Southern Cal and is now actively pursuing a professional basketball career and has been playing overseas.
Forward Elysa Wesolek, a Charleston native, played her final season at North Florida and is now a performance nutrition fellow for the Nebraska football team.
This story was originally published October 25, 2024 at 8:15 AM.
