TAMPA, Fla. — They still think about the Freshies.
How could they not?
Sania Feagin and Bree Hall have reached their final weekend as South Carolina women’s basketball players this weekend. Raven Johnson still has one more year of eligibility because of her redshirt year, but also could be officially in her last dance depending on her WNBA decision.
They had an impossible task, living up to the recruiting class in front of them. In 2019 Aliyah Boston, Zia Cooke, Laeticia Amihere and Brea Beal arrived in Columbia as reinforcements after the program’s 10-loss 2018-19 campaign. Olivia Thompson joined as a walk-on and eventually earned a scholarship.
Those five stayed together, won a National Championship, went to three Final Fours and in a lot of ways, are responsible for maintaining the modern apparatus of South Carolina women’s basketball after the first breakthroughs of the A’ja Wilson years.
“We’re really close with them,” Johnson said about the current senior class and The Freshies. “They’re cheering for us, and they want to see us succeed. They know how hard it is in March.”
The 2021 trio of course overlapped With The Freshies. They played together in 2022 when the Gamecocks won their second National Championship in Minneapolis, and were there a year later for the devastating Final Four loss against Iowa. So much of the story of the 2024 team and the mission to make it back was to avenge that career-ending loss for The Freshies.
But for this group, which started as far in the shadows of others as any recruiting class can be, their own legacy is more than secure now. Johnson, Hall and Feagin have been to four Final Fours, won four SEC regular season titles, three SEC Tournament titles and two National Championships, with the opportunity to claim an unprecedented third just 80 minutes away.
Even by the lofty standards of those who came before them, this group has carved out its own identity and legacy in Columbia.
“To think about them being able to do something that no other class has ever done, it would be them,” Dawn Staley said. “It would be them because I do believe that this class sacrificed the most of all of them.”
Johnson tore her ACL as a freshman and missed out on playing nearly the entire season. Hall came off the bench until her junior year. Feagin did not regularly start until her senior year, getting jumped into the pecking order by underclassmen Chloe Kitts.
They took everything in stride, learning from one of the most accomplished groups in college basketball history. Boston, Beal, Cooke and Amihere were all drafted into the WNBA, three of them top-10 overall picks.
Even now, as all four have gone their separate ways and cheer the Gamecocks on from afar, there is still an open line of communication with their former teammates.
“I talk to all of them,” Hall said. “I just hit Brea Beal the other day just to get some advice on a couple different things that I was concerned about .I also talk to Aliyah nearly every single day. I talked to Zia the other day. I talk to Laeticia quite often.”
And there was one more thing Hall wanted to make clear about her recruiting class.
“Anybody can text me when I leave here,” she said. “I respond to all messages, all calls, and I’m always ready to help anybody that wants some help.”
Johnson started her career learning as a guard from Cooke, and is eager to pass everything on to MiLaysia Fulwiley. Likewise down low Feagin learned from Boston and is eager to drop every last skill, technique on Joyce Edwards before departing.
“I’ve thought about it,” Feagin said about assuming the role of mentor. “It’s just knowing that it’s [the program] going to be in good hands. Everybody here is loving it and trusting their process.”
This is the true legacy of the class. Connectors of a dynasty, the group who played with one golden era and are trying to help launch another, all while chiseling their own names in the record books.
When they broke ground on campus, they were with players who signed in 2019. The current freshmen they share the floor with — if they complete their careers in Columbia — will leave in 2028.
They don’t have a nickname synonymous with Gamecock lore. They didn’t show up at a time when the program was desperate for new life after its worst season out of the last dozen. The No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA Draft is not in this group, and there won’t be three in the top-10. They don’t need to be compared to anyone else, nor would they want it.
“Because of their sacrifice, they put us in the position to make history,” Staley said. “You know, I love this class for that. They don't get the credit. They don't get the individual credit that they deserve, and don't get the national credit they deserve.”
Sania Feagin, Bree Hall and Raven Johnson.
Three players who will end up touching a decade of South Carolina’s most successful run by any program the school has ever seen.
Regardless of how this weekend ends, it is impossible to tell any complete story of not just South Carolina’s women’s basketball history, but South Carolina’s athletics history in general, without mentioning all three.
Only one chapter left to write.
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