Has Chloe Kitts played her last game as a Gamecock? Here’s what Dawn Staley says
Dawn Staley and the South Carolina women’s basketball team will be without star Chloe Kitts for the entirety of the 2025-26 season. But what about next year?
The Gamecocks announced Monday that Kitts tore her right ACL, is expected to have surgery this week and will miss her senior year.
Is there a chance that we’ve seen Kitts’ last game in a South Carolina uniform? It’s not entirely out of the question.
Neither Staley’s nor Kitts’ respective statements on the injury Monday explicitly said she would or wouldn’t return to USC for another season of college basketball.
Staley, speaking Tuesday at the SEC Tipoff preseason media event, told The State that she and Kitts haven’t had any discussions about what exactly her future looks like.
“We just want to deal with what’s in front of us right now,” Staley said. “She’s got a long time for her to decide that part of it, and we’re gonna let her decide that. I always leave that to the player and families to decide that.
“Obviously we would welcome her back.”
Prior to her injury, the general consensus was that Kitts would play her senior year at South Carolina in 2025-26 and then head to the WNBA. Several outlets considered Kitts to be a first-round pick in the April 2026 draft.
It typically takes at least nine months to recover from an ACL tear. Assuming Kitts injured her knee sometime in the last two weeks, that would mean she would be at that nine-month recovery mark in July. That’s typically the third month of the WNBA regular season.
Kitts has the option to take a medical redshirt season. That would allow her to rehab with the team and have one last ride with the Gamecocks in 2026-27.
Or maybe Kitts opts to finish school at South Carolina and continue on to the WNBA. She wouldn’t be the first injured player to be drafted and rehab with her new pro team. Virginia Tech’s Liz Kitley tore her ACL with the Hokies and was drafted by the Las Vegas Aces in the second round of the 2024 draft — though Kitley’s injury came at the end of her senior season.
If Kitts’ career is done, she leaves behind a solid resume with South Carolina.
Kitts enrolled early and joined South Carolina in January 2023, playing in 18 games with the Gamecocks. She started 31 of 37 games in her sophomore year (her first full collegiate season) and helped South Carolina win a national title in 2023-24.
Last year, Kitts came into her own as a player. She started in all 38 of South Carolina’s games and averaged a career-high 10.2 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. She turned things up a notch in the back half of the season and even recorded the ninth triple-double in program history. She earned MVP honors at both the SEC Tournament and the NCAA Birmingham 2 Regional for her efforts in the postseason.
“Chloe is irreplaceable for what she brings, tangibly and intangibly,” Staley said Tuesday.
