How two South Carolina newbies continued a winning tradition. Meet the next ‘Freshies’

CLEVELAND — South Carolina’s MiLaysia Fulwiley was the first player to snip the Gamecocks’ championship net for no other reason than her age. As the youngest player on South Carolina’s roster, the 5-foot-10 guard opened the festivities. She compared starting off a net-cutting ceremony to being forced to sit in the backseat of a car.

The anticipated 2024 national championship between South Carolina and Iowa got off to a turbulent start for the Gamecocks. The Hawkeyes sprinted out to a 12-2 lead, and led 20-9 with 4:45 to play in the first quarter. It was then that coach Dawn Staley decided to shake up the seating arrangement. Right away, Fulwiley entered the contest and found reserve forward Sania Feagin for a lay-up. “You can tell early when she’s locked in and focused,” assistant coach Winston Gandy said. Gandy knew after only one offensive and defensive possession, “Lay’s gonna have a good one.”

Fulwiley scored 7 points in the first quarter to slash the Gamecocks’ deficit to seven and help them settle. Guard Tessa Johnson, a fellow freshman, provided a key lift, too. In South Carolina’s 87-75 win over Iowa, Johnson made 7 of 11 shots and finished with a team-high 19 points. It was only the third time she led the Gamecocks in scoring this season. “I thought they were not afraid of the moment and they were chomping at the bit to get in,” Gandy said.

South Carolina’s victory capped a perfect season. The Gamecocks (38-0) are only the 10th team ever to go wire-to-wire without dropping a game. They ended up reaching the destination they had set out for when this year’s group began their grueling summer workouts.

But Sunday’s victory might also be a harbinger of what’s to come for the program. “They’re coming back to get another one and another one and another one,” said Fulwiley’s mother, Phea Mixon. After their showing on Sunday, who is to doubt them?

It would have been hard to imagine the two freshmen sparking South Carolina’s title game rally when the 2024 Gamecocks first came together. “They were both out of shape,” assistant coach Khadijah Sessions said. The transition to life in college was a winding process. One morning during Fulwiley’s second week of summer classes, she arrived late for a team breakfast. She thought nothing would come of it. But tardiness in college, she learned, was different from being late in high school. Staley told her she would sit out of a practice.

Fulwiley and Johnson both struggled defensively in summer workouts. And on offense? “We made a lot of high school passes, a lot of mistakes,” Fulwiley said.

Said Johnson: “I get down on myself a lot because I expect a lot out of myself. But I’ve learned that it’s OK to fail.”

MiLaysia Fulwiley’s court vision is awesome. I am obsessed with the pass to set up this Tessa Johnson three. pic.twitter.com/vvOxWWbYQb

— Ella Brockway (@ellabrockway) April 7, 2024

Adversity took the form of missed shots and blown defensive assignments. Over the summer, Sessions joked with them that both might be relegated to playing on the practice team.

In early-season games, both played sporadic minutes, sometimes playing key roles on the deepest roster in the country. (South Carolina’s bench averaged nearly 34 points per game and outscored Iowa 37-0.) Other times, they seldom saw the floor.

Still, Sessions also had seen enough to believe in what the freshman duo could be. At the start of official practices, she called her mother and said that Johnson would be the reason South Carolina would win the national championship. Her prophecy proved correct.

A key to South Carolina’s success is biding time and trust.

“I think MiLaysia Fulwiley has been very patient with us to be able to have a household name coming off the bench, playing maybe, probably less than 20 minutes a game,” Staley said, “where she could have gone anywhere else in the country and they’d have given her the ball time and time again. But winning a national championship will allow us and that relationship to continue to grow because I know she really wanted this. And I would imagine that, come as early as next year, she’s going to want to be a starter, she’s going to want to play more minutes, she’s going to want a lot of different things because she got the big one. So now she’ll maybe want to concentrate on some individual awards. And I appreciate her sacrifice.”

It’s not unusual for South Carolina’s talented players to share minutes like this. After the victory, former Gamecocks center Laeticia Amihere congratulated the team in the locker room. She had been a five-star recruit who started only four games in her career. “Every single one of these players are starters on any Division I team,” Amihere said. “Just to see them shine when their name is called is special.”

Amihere was part of South Carolina’s acclaimed “Freshies” class — a group of five players who went 129-9 over four years in Columbia. Four of them were selected in last year’s WNBA Draft, with star center Aliyah Boston having been taken No. 1 overall and Amihere at No. 8.

Despite entering the 2023 Final Four undefeated, South Carolina lost to Iowa. Multiple players said they were seeking to avenge that defeat on Sunday, to win a title for the core that didn’t last season.

The Freshies group text was lively throughout the morning, into the afternoon and throughout the game on Sunday. It was celebratory after, too. They were overjoyed by the performances of Kamilla Cardoso (15 points and 17 rebounds), Raven Johnson (5 rebounds and 4 steals, and excellent defense on Iowa’s Cailtin Clark), Te-Hina Paopao (14 points on 4-of-7 shooting), Chloe Kitts (11 points and 10 rebounds) and of course, Tessa Johnson and Fulwiley, who finished with 9 points and a team-high 4 assists.

“I think they’re writing their own story and I’m excited to see it,” Amihere said.

A deserving chapter in any book about Sunday would include when Fulwiley noticed her teammates struggling to open the game. “The first couple minutes, that wasn’t South Carolina,” she said. “We showed it once we got in there. I feel like they just needed someone like me or Tessa to be a spark off the bench.”

The Gamecocks led by three at halftime, and with 1:13 to go in the third quarter, Fulwiley was in transition and found Johnson on the left wing for an open 3-pointer. Johnson sank it, stretching South Carolina’s lead to 11, the largest of the quarter.

Iowa coach Lisa Bluder called timeout, and Raven Johnson hugged Fulwiley near halfcourt. “I’m going to give Tessa Johnson her flowers,” Raven Johnson said. “When you talk about a freshman, it’s just the stuff that she does. She’s always ready for the moments. When her number is called, she’s always ready. Every shot she puts up, it goes in. Just what Tessa does.”

Tessa Johnson and Milaysia Fulwiley are NOT playing like freshmen this afternoon

— Brianna Turner (@_Breezy_Briii) April 7, 2024

Not surprisingly, there still were moments Sunday in which their inexperience came out. With 7:33 in the fourth quarter, and the Gamecocks leading by 14 points, Fulwiley fouled Iowa’s Sydney Affolter on a short 2-point jumper. Staley looked back at her coaching staff and exclaimed, “Lay,” in frustration. But it was a time of growth, too. Fulwiley ran over to the sideline for a short pep-talk, and Staley appeared to urge her on.

Fulwiley’s season had opened with a jaw-dropping scoop layup against Notre Dame that ignited the crowd lucky enough to witness the basket in-person. In the waning minutes of her season, she repeatedly stood up, looked at the Gamecocks fans behind her and called out for them to cheer. Her energy — and her desire for her teammates to match her — has never been lacking, Gamecocks assistants said.

After the final buzzer and the multicolored confetti sprayed across the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse court, Fulwiley and Johnson shared a moment together, before Johnson began her own ascent up the victory ladder.

“We went through it all together,” Johnson said.

Added Fulwiley: “People (go through) their whole college career without getting a national championship. To get one in my first year, it means a lot.”

She hopes it won’t be her last.

(Photos of MiLaysia Fulwiley and Tessa Johnson: Steph Chambers / Getty Images,  C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)