BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Adhel Tac has played 86 minutes all season.

Some of it was the reality of recovering from an ACL tear her senior year of high school, an injury which led her to enroll early at South Carolina once playing her final season of high school basketball officially out of the question. Some of it is the general nature of freshmen needing time to grow and develop behind more experienced players.

She is the very rare player to earn a National Championship ring before even being eligible to play.

Ask her teammates, and they will unanimously tell her she earned every last diamond in that ring.

“She's a lover,” senior forward Sania Feagin said. “She's loved on this team because she loves us and she gives us her all. She's our biggest cheerleader, so why not be her biggest cheerleader?"

Keep an eye on South Carolina’s bench at any point, and you will see Tac as the most engaged player there. Living and dying on every single moment, engaged with every single action and the first one to jump off the bench when anything positive happens.

Every player would rather be in the game, obviously, but this is the upside of having Tac on the bench during this learning year. She is the consummate teammate, a player everyone loves spending time with and can’t wait to watch when she gets in the game.

“She is the kind of person that is happy for everyone else,” Tessa Johnson said. “No matter where she is or what is happening with her, she is happy for everyone else. The fact that she goes out there and does her thing makes everyone else happy. That's just the team that we're on."

The benefit of having Tac on the bench? She is a coach in a player’s body.

In South Carolina’s second round game against Indiana, a series of defensive breakdowns plagued the first half. South Carolina’s bigs struggled on switches, and went into halftime trailing.

Tac, even as a freshman who did not play a second, knew what the problem was and did not shy away from pointing it out.

“I mean a lot of the time they're on the court doing the right thing, there's just no communication,” Tac said after the Indiana game. “Sometimes you have to remind them, open your mouth and say something."

Last March, when Tac was not only sitting on the bench but unavailable to play anyway, she became an extra member of Dawn Staley’s staff.

Scouting opponents, working on game plans, being something of a bridge between the players and coaches. An extra set of eyes to view the game through a fresh lens, but also a peer for the players.

It helps that she’s wise beyond her years.

“She just knows her stuff,” Staley said. “Scouting reports, if there's anybody that knows everything about our opposing team, it is Adhel. That will come with more playing time, for her to be able to put that on display. But she's a pretty sharp cookie."

For another player under these circumstances, this situation could have deteriorated quickly. It would be easy to get discouraged after not playing for an entire year, and mostly riding the bench even after getting healthy. Players without such a desire to learn might have spent last year just trying to recover physically without getting a head start on the intangibles side of their game.

But for Tac, a 6-foot-5 presence who knows she has all the tools to be next in a long line of great South Carolina post players, sharpening everything else is the first priority.

No shortcuts, easy paths or workarounds. Just hard work and a trust in both her own abilities and the development process.

“She is not resting on her laurels and feeling sorry for herself,” Staley said. “ She is in the gym getting better. She's getting in extra shots, getting in extra rebounding opportunities.”

She has a long way to go, but there is no rush.

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