Kierra Fletcher was not supposed to be on the court.

Her AAU head coach Jarvis Mitchell had just watched Fletcher "completely tear" her calf muscle, and immediately subbed her out.

But this was AAU. No television, no public address announcer to recite the substitutions, and most crucially, no requirement to check in with a scorer's table. Mitchell turned away from his bench to talk to the referee, and the conversation lasted just long enough for Fletcher to take matters into her own hands.

Torn calf muscle and all, she substituted herself into the game and limped onto the court for another possession.

Mitchell — realizing he had been duped — used a timeout to get control of the situation.

"She wanted to play that badly," he told GamecockScoop. "Of course at AAU they never announce what kids are checked into the game, so it wasn't until I actually heard the whistle blow and I was like, 'what in the hell?' And then as soon as we got the ball back I called timeout and pulled her butt out, like 'what are you doing?'"

It is the same hunger to play that led a three-year-old Fletcher to run onto the court during one of her dad's police league basketball games. The tenacity that kept her going after 20 months without playing in a game, battling through a foot surgery sandwiched between two full offseasons.

And in a lot of ways, it led the Warren, Mich. native and former Georgia Tech guard to put her name in the transfer portal and commit to South Carolina.

"At first I wanted to move closer to home I think," Fletcher told GamecockScoop. "But when this opportunity came and me and her [South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley] just started having different conversations and seeing how much better of a player I could be mentally — thinking the game differently and learning from her — that definitely came into play as well."

Fletcher is a point guard, the same position Staley played. She describes herself as "a slasher who can get to the mid-range pretty well." Pick up a stat book, and you can find a little bit of everything in her game. Totals of 1,090 points, 645 rebounds, 326 assists, 160 steals and 40 blocks in 114 games with the Yellow Jackets.

Drop that same stat book, and the real Fletcher emerges.

"She's a warrior," Kierra's father Anthony told GamecockScoop. "Once you guys see her play, she's at 110 percent non-stop when she's on that court. I mean, non-stop. She plays hard from beginning to end, first quarter to the last quarter, every minute when she's on that court she's playing hard, hard, hard."

Everything leads back here for Fletcher. Tenacity, aggression, filling in the gaps of any given game. Pitching in a softball game when she had no prior experience on the mound because her team was in a bind — and still getting the win.

Using her feisty brand of basketball to convince her mother's co-workers to watch one of her games, then playing well enough to get them to follow her the rest of the season, even driving more than an hour to Lansing to watch her play in the state championship game.

"I said, 'Here's what you're going to see," Kierra's mother Emily told GamecockScoop. "You're going to see this kind of funny-walking little girl. You're going to say to yourself, 'she doesn't play basketball.' The whistle is going to blow, and then your eyes are going to get big because she goes into a zone. You're going to see her hustle hard. You're going to see her play hard for the whole duration of the game. You're going to see how competitive she is and how serious she is about the game of basketball.'

"And I told them, if what I'm telling you guys is a disappointment, I'll buy you all a six-pack of beer."

Fletcher won a state championship with Warren Cousino High School.

No beer was purchased.

The bursts are temporary, though. Controlled, measured pops on gameday, like fireworks bursting out of a canister.

What happens when the smoke clears?

"Very, very compassionate," Mitchell said about Fletcher off the court. "Caring. She loves talking futuristic things, she loves to be challenged and is just a great leader. She's not a follower. She's the kind of person that is like, 'nah, I don't think that way.' She's not the one that's going to go along with what everyone else is going with."

In high school, Fletcher spearheaded a diversity alliance at Warren Cousino, specifically geared towards helping kids with developmental challenges. Of course, it centered around sports, with what she called "Special Olympics" type events organized.

Not as a requirement, or school-wide initiative. An off-court application to how she fights and cares for her teammates. It was everything she does on hardwood, presented in a different package.

Some would argue, an entirely different person.

"I guess you can call that a split personality," Anthony said. "She's like a raging dog on that court, but when she gets off the court, she's like a little puppy."

You can set your watch to it. The ball is tipped, and the warrior comes out. Taking charges, diving for loose balls, and crashing the glass despite only standing at 5-foot-9. Once the final buzzer sounds, it goes back into its box until the next game.

"She goes right back to being this little pup," Emily said. "The light switch goes back off, and she's back to being sweet Kierra. And I love it about her."

When Fletcher had foot surgery at Georgia Tech, her career was at a crossroads. Stay in Atlanta and rehab to play for the Yellow Jackets, or seek options elsewhere?

In the meantime, she went back home to Michigan during the 2021-22 season. She worked on her recovery. She spent more time with family, letting her "little pup" personality out. She worked with Mitchell, fine-tuning little areas of her game in the gym.

It was a game of patience for a player who loves playing basketball more than anything. Watching, waiting for the right opportunity. Then one day in February, a head coach reached out to Mitchell to try to get in touch with Kierra.

Dawn Staley.

Fletcher and her father visited Columbia during the opening weekend of the 2022 NCAA Tournament when the Gamecocks defeated Howard and Miami for the first two steps of their National Championship run.

Through it all, she envisioned herself in the program. She got to know the players. She called her mom and beamed about how she felt like she was already a part of the program. Staley called Emily, needing to converse with the parent who could not make the official visit.

"I would say I was probably like 95 percent sure after I left my visit," Fletcher said. "Because my dad was sold on South Carolina; he and coach had good conversations. The thing I liked a lot about her was she wanted to speak with my mom, because she didn't come on the visit with us. I respected that a lot, so I think when I left my visit I was definitely leaning towards South Carolina."

Two weeks later South Carolina defeated UConn in the National Championship Game. Fletcher watched from afar back in Michigan, mind spinning with possibilities. Not only was she about to join the top program in the country, but she would also be learning from a head coach who mastered the position.

How much better could she be? Where could she fit in with what could be one of the greatest college basketball teams ever? What would it feel like to be embraced by the fans who made South Carolina the nation's leader in attendance last year?

At long last, Fletcher played again on Nov. 7 in South Carolina's season-opening win over East Tennessee State. She only played nine minutes but as usual, checked all the boxes: three points, three rebounds, an assist, and a steal.

After fighting through the better part of two years away from her passion, she was back out there. Back where she is most comfortable, playing in a situation with unlimited potential.

"I'm just ready to play again," Fletcher said before the season. "I already appreciated the game, but I think with me getting hurt and not being able to play at all, it brought me a greater appreciation."

This time, she did not have to sneak into the action.