ALBANY, N.Y. — Nobody quite knows what adjective to use.

Sweet, goofy, playful, they all fit South Carolina’s freshman guard Tessa Johnson.

Everyone agrees on one thing, though: They love having her around.

“Tessa is like my little sister,” guard Te-Hina Paopao told GamecockScoop. “I don’t know, there’s so many memories with her I couldn’t even tell one story. She’s a bright light. She’s wonderful. I love her.”

The Albertville, Minn. native was not the highest-rated or most talked about member of Dawn Staley’s incoming recruiting class, but she has made herself an irreplaceable member of South Carolina’s rotation with a steady upward trajectory.

Her minutes have ticked up all year first from being a sparingly used bench piece to one who has now played double-digit minutes in 15 of the last 16 games and averaged 23.6 minutes in five postseason games.

She rainbows 3-pointers in on as high of an arc as you will ever see on a shot, seemingly piercing the banners hanging from the rafters before dropping back in at a 43.3 percent clip. The defense is active and aggressive, exactly what you would expect from a high-energy guard.

“She’s doing great on both sides of the basketball,” Staley said in a Jan. 15 press conference. “She’s really, really impactful. She’s turning out to be a really nice player for us, like really maturing in a nice way.”

That last piece was really the final piece of the puzzle, the accelerant which turned her from a member of the machine to a key cog in it. The jump shot has always been there, and so has her court vision. Teammates and coaches alike have raved about her basketball IQ, the ability to drop herself into any situation or point in a gameflow off the bench and immediately look comfortable.

But no amount of smooth jumpers or experience playing prepares you for the first time you have to defend a college athlete, the cauldron of intensity picking up someone off the dribble or closing down space creates. And certainly, there is no way to prepare for your collegiate debut coming in Paris against a top-1o opponent.

If ever a player has had a “welcome to the league” moment, it might have been Johnson in the opener.

"From the first game in Paris I'd say the most I've grown is defensively,” Johnson told GamecockScoop. “I thought I was ready in that Paris game defensively, but I was not. I did not chase any screens on shooters. But now I will chase over my screens."

These things never click overnight, but over time it all slid into place for Johnson. She turned into that reliable two-way player Staley loves, a steady presence off the bench. The responsibility has simultaneously changed — she is shouldering more of a load than ever before — and remained exactly the same. As long as she is who she is, playing five minutes or 25, it is enough for this team.

“She does so many things for us,” Adhel Tac told GamecockScoop. “She’s so dependable where coach [Staley] knows she can come to Tessa whenever Tessa comes off the bench. She’s a really great player, and I love how everyone is getting to see Tessa the way we see her in practice. She just brings joy to everybody. She’s a great person to have around.”

From any corner of any arena, you can see the comfort. It oozes off of her, as distinguishable a trait as Sania Feagin's green shoes or Paopao’s bright braids.

From the bench, locker room and practice gym, it is practically blinding. One minute around her is a window into comfort, recognition of her personal value and pride in the steps it took to reach it.

"I’ve seen her grow in confidence,” Ashlyn Watkins told GamecockScoop. “She attacks the basket. I knew she could attack the basket, but now I feel like she’s doing it more.”

In the simplest terms possible, she is the type of person everyone wants to be around.

Particularly when things are going this well.

Infectious positivity at practice and during games. Constant supportive messages for teammates on the off days — Bree Hall noted she got a “super super sweet” note from Johnson when she found out she would be unable to play in the NCAA Tournament opener.

“I love Tessa so much,” Feagin told GamecockScoop. “She’s just fun to be around, she’s goofy and everything like that. She just likes to play; she plays so much. She’s really playful. Everybody loves Tessa.”

Call it Tessa being Tessa or just the youthful cheer of a player blossoming for the first time, but she was a natural choice to become the team’s unofficial designated media member documenting the postseason. Running around practices and open locker room sessions to ask her teammates questions from everywhere on the spectrum, doing so with the same smile on her face she plays with.

If anything is happening in the world of South Carolina women’s basketball, Johnson is probably there and certainly smiling.

“She’s just goofy,” Sakima Walker told GamecockScoop. “It’s just good to hear her laugh. Her laugh makes you laugh.”

Two wins away from the Final Four and four from the National Championship, nobody is laughing more.

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