South Carolina women's basketball: Pre-practice mailbag

On Wednesday, I opened the floor to women’s basketball questions on The Insiders Forum. Here’s a sample of what was discussed.

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(Questions and answers have been edited for clarity.)

Winloseortie: Are recruiting responsibilities divided up by geography or position played or all hands on deck?

How is the staff seen as recruiters?I know Jolette Law was considered an ace recruiter when we brought her here. Have she and Boyer “aged out” as recruiters?

Khadijah Sessions had a strong reputation as a personal coach to elite prospects prior to joining the staff. How has that worked out with recruiting?

I don’t know anything about Mary Wooley except what’s on her USC bio page. What does she bring to the table?

Lastly, how does Molly Binetti fit into the recruiting process for us?
How recruiting is divided up: It’s all hands on deck, as you put it. Obviously, Wendale Farrow is the go-to for California because he was out there the past several years and he has stronger relationships. But everyone goes everywhere and recruits for all positions. You may have noticed during the open sessions, the coaches rotated which event they were at each day so that USC had a coach present every day, and Dawn could hit each event.

How the staff is seen as recruiters – When you have three nattys, it creates a buzz when that Gamecock gear walks in the gym. The players know when USC coaches are watching, especially when Dawn is there. No offense to Geno, but he doesn’t have an aura of cool like Dawn. USC is known for doing a lot of advance research and spending a lot of money to really personalize visits.

Law and Boyer aren’t very online, so it may seem like they do less, or “aged out,” as you put it, but they are still very involved. It’s just more behind-the-scenes.

Sessions and Wooley – When the NCAA expanded the coaching staffs, the additional coaches (for USC, Sessions and Wooley) can’t recruit off campus. Sessions’ impact is the same as with the current players: been there, done that, relentless energy, and she can relate well to players because they are closer in age.

Wooley is essentially the GM. She organizes visits, schedules recruiting trips, helps organize who they are recruiting, etc. That was also her job in her first stint at USC, but she wanted to be a bench coach so she went to Villanova. Now she’s able to do both. “What she brings to the table” – I guess I’d say trust, because Dawn counts on her to do a lot of heavy lifting. Also, her son is that adorable mop-top you see celebrating with the team all the time.

Molly’s role in recruiting – I’m not really sure how much she is personally involved in visits, but her training program is definitely a selling point, especially for bigs.

Cockygirl: Do you know if/when they plan to replace Chloe Rice? I see several pro WNBA players using their offseason to coach college basketball. It would be so cool if A’ja Wilson came back and did that.
It appears they won’t replace Chloe, at least not this season. I’m not sure if it’s a budget thing, or they don’t want to hire from outside. They haven’t had a grad assistant since, well, Chloe, so maybe they’ll go that route.

I know you are joking, but it’s in the Nike contract that A’ja will have a role promoting the team.

SCcocks4ever: Chris, Do you think Dawn announcing she would have taken the Knicks job has possibly hurt our recruiting? Is it possible that Mulkey et al would use that against South Carolina?
Is it possible someone will try to use it to negative recruit? Yes. But they were already doing that with the $0 buyout in Dawn’s contract. It’s just a guess based on social media, but most recruits seem to be more impressed that she got the interview than worried she might have gotten the job. The Knicks didn’t call Kim Mulkey, after all.

Dcamp48: Any updates on the two ladies who visited last week, Emily McDonald and Kaeli Wynn?
Emily McDonald visited Kentucky last weekend, and we think she is visiting Indiana this weekend. Her recruitment has been a whirlwind because of how she blew up this summer. She went from planning visits to Michigan State and Wake Forest to South Carolina and UCLA and starting her first year at a new school. She doesn’t have a timetable that we know of.

Kaeli Wynn has kept everything very close to the vest, and it helped that she dropped off the radar due to an injury that cost her the summer. So far, USC is her only official visit, but a while back, she said she intends to visit Stanford. She hasn’t commented publicly since early spring, so we’re all just waiting.

secocks: Do you think revenue sharing and the NIL will make it harder for the top programs to stack talent?
It will help the teams that invest. North Carolina only gave WBB $250,000 in revenue share. That’s one good player. A reliable source told me there is one P2 program that is giving $0 revenue share to WBB.

Those programs are being told to make it up with NIL, but because NIL has to go through the clearinghouse, programs can’t actually guarantee that NIL money will come. I’m on the record predicting a lot of elite 2026 recruits are going to be in the portal after one season because they didn’t get the money they were promised.

CockyGirl: If you had to guess our record this season, what would you say?
I reserve the right to change this for my annual predictions story. Right now, I’ll say 28-2. Split Vegas and then drop another one somewhere. Maybe LSU finally ends the losing streak.

bantam: Do you see us using the big lineup and the smaller lineup as match up lineups, more than either being the set lineup?
It’s too early to say for sure, not until I see the lineups on the court. But I do think one of the big improvements this season will be the ability to give different looks (big or small or fast, etc). They couldn’t do that last season.

secocks: What is your guess on the two deep?
PG – Raven/Maddy
SG – Ta’Niya
W – Tessa/Agot or Ayla
F – Chloe and Joyce are going to play 28-30 minutes whether it’s here or another position
P – Okot/Dauda or Tac

I’m not sure the two deep will mean a whole lot, though. There’s going to be a lot of players sliding to different positions to create mismatches.

Beehaver: What is the access level that you have to Gamecock women’s basketball? Do you enjoy an “open door ” policy with the staff? Do they keep you in the loop on recruiting targets? Who do you think has a breakout year? Who do you hope has one?
It would be an NCAA violation for coaches to talk about recruits.

I wish we had more access – open locker rooms in the postseason are great because we get to find and tell interesting stories and get into players’ personalities. But we have more access than a lot of programs, so I’m not complaining.

I think Tessa Johnson is going to have a breakout year. At Florida State, Ta’Niya Latson created a lot of open threes for her teammates, and I’ve heard that she and Tessa are already meshing well.

I hope Maryam Dauda and Adhel Tac have breakout years. They are complete sweethearts, and they deserve good things. Spend five minutes with either one and you absolutely love them.

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