An early look at South Carolina WBB’s post next year without Madina Okot
The NCAA did no favors to Dawn Staley and the South Carolina women’s basketball team on Wednesday. As such, South Carolina will be down a big contributor in the post for the 2026-27 season.
Senior forward Madina Okot’s waiver for an extra year of eligibility was denied by the NCAA, USC announced Wednesday.
Okot, who played her first two years of college ball at Zetech University in her native Kenya, played two seasons of NCAA ball. She started her career in the States as a junior at Mississippi State before playing this past season with South Carolina.
“Early in her basketball career, Madina made courageous choices not just to pursue just the sport, but also to better her life,” Staley said in a statement. “Her path included just a short time with us in Columbia, but we are grateful to be part of her story. She made our team and our sport better.”
Okot is a projected first-round draft pick in next week’s WNBA Draft. She leaves behind a 6-foot-6 sized hole in South Carolina’s lineup for next season.
Okot was an All-SEC selection this year and averaged a double-double. Okot was the team’s third-leading scorer with 12.8 points per game and led the SEC with 10.6 rebounds per game. She was also a finalist for the Lisa Leslie Center of the Year award.
Let’s take a look at how South Carolina’s post depth will shape up without Okot.
Life without Okot
If there’s one thing for certain about Staley, it’s that she’s going to load up her squad with top-tier talent. One glance at the forwards expected to be on next year’s roster and that much is evident.
South Carolina is expected to return Joyce Edwards, Alicia Tournebize, Adhel Tac, Chloe Kitts and Ashlyn Watkins next season. Granted, that’s assuming none of those players hits the transfer portal, which opened April 6 and closes April 20.
Okot started for all but three of the 39 games she played in this year. So her absence, hypothetically, leaves a starting spot open in Staley’s lineup for another forward alongside Edwards — an All-American who was 0.8 points per game away from being the first USC player since A’ja Wilson to average 20 ppg — who should retain her starting spot.
Tac and Tournebize are still relatively unseasoned players — Tournebize enrolled halfway through the year and played in 20 games while Tac has played averaged 7.5 minutes in 46 games the last two seasons — and likely won’t be candidates to make the jump into the starting lineup. That leaves Kitts and Watkins as the likely top contenders.
Both Kitts and Watkins will be returning from ACL injuries. Kitts tore her ACL in practice last October and missed the entire 2025-26 season. Watkins tore hers in January 2025 and took the past year off from basketball.
If it comes down to those two, Kitts seems like the smart choice to get the starting spot alongside Edwards. She’s started in all but six of the last 75 games she’s played for the Gamecocks and was expected to start this year before her injury.
The other possibility is Staley starting games with a four-guard lineup, similar to when she swapped Agot Makeer into the starting lineup for Okot in a three-game stretch this season. Makeer was essentially South Carolina’s sixth man during the NCAA Tournament and showed star potential during March Madness, when she averaged 14 points per game off the bench.
Will South Carolina add more post depth?
So will South Carolina add another post player via the transfer portal? Staley’s early comments would suggest not.
“Obviously we got to add some guard play, definitely some lead guard play, some more athleticism in the guard department,” Staley said after USC’s title game loss. “I think our front line is pretty good, especially the ones that are coming back from injury, coming back to our team. We got to add some guard play.”
The Gamecocks are set to add two freshmen to the roster for the 2026-27 season in Kaeli Wynn and Kelsi Andrews.
Both players are forwards — Wynn is 6-foot-2 and Andrews is 6-foot-3, per ESPN — bringing the list of forwards expected to be on the roster next year to seven. Again, assuming no one transfers out, the forward room would be: Andrews, Edwards, Kitts, Tac, Tournebize, Watkins and Wynn.
That number isn’t out of the ordinary as South Carolina has carried six or seven post players in each of the last five seasons. But, it’s still a lot of players with only so many minutes to go around.
You could make the argument that Okot leaving, in a way, clears up a bit of a logjam at forward. If she had returned, South Carolina would’ve carried, at most, eight forwards next season. Some of those minutes can now be spread out among Tournebize, Tac and the other freshmen forwards, which would help out their development in the long run. Especially when you start to look even further into the future, when South Carolina will have to replace Kitts and Watkins in the 2027-28 season.
On the other hand, Okot’s absence leaves the Gamecocks without an experienced, true center, something that’s been a calling card of some of Staley’s best teams at South Carolina.
All that being said, adding another big to the roster this offseason isn’t entirely out of the question. If one of the expected returners hits the transfer portal then Staley could find a replacement for that player. Staley could decide to bring in another big to add healthy experience to the room.
In this day and age roster turnover is like the wild West — anything could happen.
