Replacing her is impossible, but South Carolina might have the pieces to make up for the absence.
South Carolina women’s basketball beat Texas A&M 90-49 in the first game without Ashlyn Watkins, the tune-up test against a struggling SEC opponent before a start of five straight against top-25 opponents starting on Sunday against Texas.
This particular game was a blowout, a game that was never in any doubt against a Texas A&M (8-7, 1-2 SEC) team which lost five non-conference games. But for whatever a game against an overmatched opponent can look like, this was exactly what South Carolina (15-1, 3-0 SEC) needed before its toughest stretch of the regular season.
The three regular post players in the rotation — Chloe Kitts, Sania Feagin and Joyce Edwards — all picked up the slack with double-digit scoring performances and solid defense, and the depth post players saw substantial action.
“We’re going to lean on the three that have played the most minutes for us in Joyce, Feagin and Chloe,” Dawn Staley said. “And then we’ll bring everyone else along and spot them here or there.”
Those three are a given, or at least as close to one as you can have in the topsy-turvy world of college sports. At least one of them will be on the floor at any given moment if Staley can help it, and often it will be the combination of the two. But asking those two players alone to fill the 80 available post minutes a game might not be a reasonable proposition with this much season still to go.
This is where the other three players come in, specifically Maryam Dauda on Thursday night. For the first time since the East Carolina game on Nov. 17, Dauda played in a first half. And not just for a brief stint or because of someone else’s foul trouble, either. The Arkansas transfer played 8:34, her third-highest minute total of the season. As with any player shaking off rust, there were mixed results. But the flashes were there, enough to create some optimism about helping to fill the Watkins void moving forward.
“Coach had a little talk with us and she was just like, ‘We don’t have to play like Ash,’” Dauda said. “We just have to come in and everyone has to do their job in filling that void.”
Dauda, Adhel Tac and Sakima Walker combined for 21 minutes, a figure just a couple minutes over what Watkins averaged in a game. Asking the trio to do the same as the competition stiffens might not be a feasible way to distribute minutes, especially while all three knock off the rust of playing sparingly for the first half of the season.
But if even one of them can pop up with a big night here or there, or even just a burst of energy in a key spot off the bench, it will help change the calculus for the post room without Watkins.
“It is about production,” Staley said. “If any one of the three, meaning Sakima, Adhel or Maryam play well, I’m going to leave them out there. They’re going to play extended minutes. If they don’t, I’ve got to pull them.”
The overall narrative and flow of South Carolina’s season did not change drastically with a routine home win. But it might have been a foundation for the future, one rapidly approaching with No. 5 Texas coming to town next.
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