Dawn Staley admits Kamilla Cardoso had a hard time during one-game suspension in NCAA Tournament

Kamilla Cardoso watched from the bench as South Carolina tipped off the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Although she wished she could have been out there with her teammates, the Gamecocks’ leading scorer was serving a one-game suspension after shoving LSU guard Flau’Jae Johnson in the SEC Tournament Championship.

South Carolina rolled to a 91-39 victory even without Cardoso, but she still had a difficult time having to sit out. She returned for a second round matchup against North Carolina to finish with a double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds in an 88-41 win.

Speaking after that game, Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley opened up on how hard it was for Cardoso during that first game, and the reason why didn’t help.

“Kamilla had a hard time with it, to be honest,” she said. “She felt like she let her team down. She’s almost embarrassed by not being able to play. No matter how much we tried to shake her out of it, only basketball, only getting back out there and running up and down and hearing the ovation from the crowd, even got her a little emotional at the beginning of the game, she is — I mean, she’s a kind-hearted person. And it was so much unlike her.”

Cardoso has been one of the top players in women’s college basketball. She can stuff stat sheet on a nightly basis and only makes the Gamecocks a more dangerous team moving forward. South Carolina is coming off of its second straight unbeaten season and won the national title in 2022.

Cardoso was a bench player that year, but now as the star, she’s ready to write another story in the school’s history. She is averaging 13.9 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game.

South Carolina has been a part of the Sweet Sixteen for the the past 10 seasons under Staley. With how dominant they’ve been this year so far, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the move on.

“I’m happy that she got over that part of it and now we can move on, and we’ll be at a neutral site and she can just kind of focus in on what she needs to do to help us continue to win,” Staley said.

The Gamecocks are next set to face No. 4 seed Indiana in the Sweet Sixteen at 5 p.m. ET on Friday.