Could depth issues inspire USC to have full roster in future? What Dawn Staley said
Dawn Staley has never been one to carry a full roster during her 18-year tenure as the head women’s basketball coach at South Carolina.
Staley has typically had 12 players on her roster each year at South Carolina (the average is 12.7 players per year during her time at USC, to be exact), a few less than the full 15 players you’re allowed to have on scholarship.
South Carolina came into this summer with the expectation it would, once again, have 12 players this season. Then Ashlyn Watkins announced she planned to take the year off, knocking that number down to 11.
And just before the start of the 2025-26 season, South Carolina announced it would be without Chloe Kitts for the year because of an ACL injury. Kitts is still on the roster, but the number of healthy players on the roster dropped to 10 after the announcement.
The Gamecocks’ thin team has already dealt with depth issues this season for a multitude of reasons (suspension of a player, injuries and sickness). South Carolina has played nearly half of its games this season shorthanded.
With all that’s gone on this year, would it cause Staley to reconsider how she constructs her roster going forward? Could we see a South Carolina roster with 15 players in the future?
“No,” Staley answered quickly on Friday. “No. 15 [players], 12, 13 at the most.”
Staley’s response makes sense. The formula has clearly worked for her at South Carolina, as evidenced by the 484 wins, nine SEC tournament championships and three national titles.
Plus, teams typically opting not to have a full roster isn’t out of the ordinary in women’s college basketball. For comparison, since the 2007-08 season, UConn and Tennessee both carried an average of 12 players on a team per year (12.6 exactly for the Vols) while LSU typically has 13 players on a team (13.5 is the exact average), according to their rosters listed online over the years.
Players being paid also adds a new wrinkle to roster construction in women’s basketball, and college sports in general. If 15 players are on the roster, that’s 15 players who are all probably asking for money, despite the fact they are more than likely not all playing.
In October, Staley told The State she felt her program was “competing with the top programs in the country” when it comes to the amount of revenue share dollars USC is allocating to its women’s basketball team. For Staley, 12 seems to generally be the sweet spot, especially in the age of revenue sharing and name, image and likeness payments. But if she were to increase to 13 players on the roster, she made it seem like she might have to get creative with how she’d come up with enough money to go around.
“If it’s 13 [players], somebody’s gonna have to go ask our AD for a little bit more money to fill that roster,” Staley said. “But for right now, I really think for this particular year, it’s probably what we had as far as rev share and NIL. Gotta go panhandle a little bit for some more to increase our roster.”
If Staley wanted to add bodies for emergency depth, she could technically add walk-ons or get South Carolina’s signees to enroll early. But both options are unlikely, as Staley already said in November she has no plans to host walk-on tryouts and said last week that the Gamecocks’ two signees don’t plan to enroll early.
“We’re good with what we have,” Staley said Nov, 6.
