Joyce Edwards playing at Stanford? It could’ve happened, USC star’s mom says
Joyce Edwards had a historically good freshman year at South Carolina.
But she wasn’t always a lock to suit up for the Gamecocks.
That’s according to Edwards’ mother, Rasheedah Edwards, who revealed that she was “Team Stanford” during her daughter’s recruiting process and she was “surprised” when Joyce, a five-star recruit from nearby Camden High School, committed to coach Dawn Staley and USC a year and a half ago.
“I assumed she was going to leave the state,” Rasheedah Edwards said.
Edwards’ comments came on an episode of “The Coop,” a South Carolina women’s basketball-focused podcast hosted by former Gamecock Olivia Thompson and produced by 1801 Media. The episode — featuring a roundtable discussion with the parents of four USC players, including Edwards — was filmed in early April ahead of the 2025 Women’s Final Four in Tampa and published online June 5.
Joyce Edwards was a breakout star for South Carolina in 2024-25. She averaged 12.7 points and 5 rebounds per game, led the team in scoring off the bench and joined A’ja Wilson and Aliyah Boston (both future No. 1 overall WNBA draft picks) as the only Gamecocks to earn first team All-SEC honors as a freshman.
Edwards, a 6-foot-3 forward, is expected to move into a starting role and develop even further as a sophomore after helping USC reach the 2025 national title game.
Her recruitment played out a little differently, though.
Joyce Edwards’ national recruiting process
The topic came up on “The Coop” podcast when Thompson asked Rasheedah Edwards if there was “any doubt” Joyce Edwards was going to wind up at USC.
Yes and no, Rasheedah Edwards said.
On one hand, she had a “whole different outlook” on her daughter’s college recruiting process. Rasheedah Edwards played some sports growing up but said it wasn’t a defining part of her life. She and her husband both work as engineers, so she was “all about the academics” for Joyce and prioritized education in the process.
And although the family has roots in South Carolina (Joyce’s father, Charlie, was born there), they aren’t lifelong residents. Joyce was born in Arizona, moved to North Carolina as a baby and didn’t move to South Carolina until she was 9.
To Rasheedah Edwards, those factors cast a wider net for Joyce’s recruitment — and made Stanford, which routinely ranks as one of the top universities in the country, a viable option even though it was 2,700 miles away in California.
The Cardinal had a strong women’s basketball tradition, too. Then-Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer was the NCAA’s all-time wins leader and had led her team to 14 Final Fours and three national championships, including the 2021 title.
“But it was never going to be our decision,” Rasheedah Edwards said. “It didn’t matter what we thought. We took Joyce to so many schools, and it was all about her making the decision, because she had to do the work. We were going to be in the comfort of our home watching, wherever she went.”
Edwards, who finished as the No. 3 overall recruit in ESPNW’s Class of 2024 rankings, took a methodical and mostly private approach to her recruiting process. Her mother helped set up visits and calls; after each weekend visit, her family would sit down and talk about pros and cons of the school in question.
The Edwards family officially visited seven colleges in 2023 before Joyce’s decision: South Carolina, Clemson, Florida, LSU, Maryland, Stanford and Texas A&M.
The Gamecocks and Staley, who’ve excelled at keeping top talent in state during her tenure, requested to be Edwards’ last official visit. She agreed. And USC went all in, going as far to lay out the exact academic path Edwards could take through South Carolina’s honors college to essentially create her own college major (an environmental engineering degree the school did not offer).
The availability of that specific degree played a “huge, huge role in my academic and athletic decision,” Edwards has said. “Without it, I wouldn’t be at South Carolina.’’
Down to the wire before picking South Carolina
Despite all of that — South Carolina’s academic assistance, USC’s history with landing other star in-state recruits like Wilson and MiLaysia Fulwiley, the Gamecocks’ on-court results, Staley’s pull — Edwards to South Carolina didn’t feel like a lock until she publicly committed to the Gamecocks over Clemson and LSU in November 2023.
Edwards, who committed on Nov. 15, the very last day of the basketball early signing period, later said she did not decide she wanted to go to South Carolina until three days earlier, after attending a Gamecocks home win at Colonial Life Arena.
When she told Staley postgame she was committing, it was the first time in a years-long recruiting process that Edwards said out loud she wanted to be a Gamecock.
Her recruitment down the stretch was so lock and key that a portion of fans worried online that Edwards would pick Clemson since she showed up to her commitment ceremony with her fingernails painted orange (that was just a funny coincidence).
“I was surprised when she chose South Carolina,” Rasheedah Edwards said, adding that Joyce told her at the time she picked USC because “it had everything for her.”
Now, she realizes that having a daughter commit to South Carolina is like “giving one and getting 13 back” because of how close she’s gotten with the other players.
“Watching them all grow and develop and love on each other, it’s so beautiful,” Rasheedah Edwards said on the podcast. “I’m so happy that me and my husband were like, ‘Joyce, it’s your decision,’ because I really feel like she made the right one.”
This story was originally published June 11, 2025 at 7:30 AM.
