WBB: Recruiting during a pandemic
Women’s basketball is heading into a weeklong recruiting shutdown, bringing a halt to an already slow summer. Recruiting for next year’s class, 2021, is largely done, with coaches trying to hold onto players who have already verbally committed. All but eight of the top 50 and 23 of the top 100 prospects have verbally committed. Attention has already turned to 2022 and 2023, two very talented classes, but that is where the normal recruiting cycle ends, yet another victim of the coronavirus pandemic.
For many players of the 2022 class, the limitations imposed by the pandemic are inconvenient, but not drastic. Many scholarship offers were made last summer or earlier, and plenty of unofficial visits have been made. There has been another spurt of offers in the past week, before the shutdown, but overall it has been relatively quiet. South Carolina has offered nine players for 2022, and all but two came in 2019 or earlier. It helps that two of South Carolina’s key targets, Talaysia Cooper (East Clarendon) and Ashlyn Watkins (Cardinal Newman) play in the Gamecocks’ backyard and are intimately familiar with the coaches. Even for those who aren’t locals, the Gamecocks have had no trouble communicating with Minnesota’s Maya Nnaji and Colorado’s Lauren Betts (the public social media interaction between Betts and Gamecock coaches went from non-existent a month ago to constant now, suggesting a change in interest level).
Where the effect of the pandemic is really being felt in the class of 2023. In a normal year, coaches would have spent the summer scouting players and making offers. Players were expecting to have the summer to showcase their ability, take unofficial visits, and get familiar with programs. None of that has happened. Some players have been able to play travel ball this summer, but there are places where that hasn’t been possible. That leaves those players worried about dropping off coaches’ radar. Even those who have been able to play haven’t had as many opportunities as usual. Meanwhile coaches aren’t in attendance at those games and campuses are closed to visitors. The result is a lot of concern from both sides.
South Carolina has five available scholarships for 2022, and should have another five open up for 2023. This time last summer, South Carolina had offered seven scholarships for 2022, and each came with a big splash. To date, South Carolina has offered scholarships to five players for the 2023 class, and even that number includes an asterisk as the offers trickle out. One of the offers was made three years ago. Another, made last year, doesn’t fit the profile of a typical Gamecock recruit. Has South Carolina delayed offering scholarships because of limited scouting? Or, given the recent offers to Betts and Nnaji, has it redoubled efforts on 2022 prospects the coaches are more familiar with?
The 2023 class is an important transitional class: it is the class that will replace the historic 2019 class of Laeticia Amihere, Brea Beal, Aliyah Boston, Zia Cooke, and Olivia Thompson. Of course, the 2023 group won’t be directly replacing them. The loaded 2021 class will provide a good bridge. The 2022 class is deep and talented, including some program cornerstones that South Carolina should be able to draw from, with another program defining class still possible. Plus, it’s impossible to know right now exactly what the needs will be for the 2023 cycle. But, even ignoring for a moment that some are likely to go down as all-time greats, the bottom line is South Carolina will be losing five players from all levels of the court and will need to replace them. It’s safe to assume that at minimum South Carolina will need a post (especially after not getting one in 2020 or 2021), a wing, and a guard.
Back to those five offers. One, maybe the most important, is local product Malaysia Fulwiley of Keenan, the 14th-ranked player in the class. The Gamecocks offered her as a seventh-grader (Ole Miss offered the same day, Fulwiley’s first two offers), and her reputation has only grown. Fulwiley is an explosive, athletic scorer with phenomenal ball-handling ability. Dawn Staley has been a regular at Fulwiley’s games and they know each other well. Fulwiley hasn’t tipped her hand about where she wants to play, but the Gamecocks really want her and are in her ear constantly (Fulwiley is on the same travel team as 2021 commit Raven Johnson). After that it gets a little more murky.
The Gamecocks offered Irmo’s Maliyiah Mason last summer. Mason is a good but undersized (5-9) rebounder, and has barely even made a blip nationally. Either the Gamecocks are banking on potential and a growth spurt, or they are taking care of a local kid. Then there are the national targets.
South Carolina offered Wisconsin point guard Kamorea “KK” Arnold back in late April, a move that flew under the radar. Arnold is the 15th-ranked prospect, and has recently picked up offers from Notre Dame and UCLA. Interestingly, her size and skill set are nearly identical to Fulwiley - when I watch their highlights they are interchangeable. They would seem to be redundant, and I would be surprised (but not shocked) if South Carolina signs both. Post Aalyah Del Rosario received an offer in early July. The 6-5 Del Rosario was born in Texas, and then grew up in the Dominican Republic before moving to Trenton, NJ in seventh grade. ESPN recently ranked her the tenth-best prospect regardless of class (2021 commits Saniya Rivers and Sania Feagin were seventh and eight on that list). As a side note: Staley’s first great player at South Carolina, current Harlem Globetrotter La’Keisha Sutton, was also from Trenton, but a different high school. Del Rosario is raw offensively, but is already a very good rebounder and defender. The most recent offer is Florida guard Emma Risch. Risch is a talented scorer with good size for a guard. She’s more than just a shooter, but her shot stands out. She has a quick release and range well beyond the three-point line. Risch looks like the sort of player who would be a good compliment to whatever team she joins.
Normally those offers would have been accompanied by social media posts from the players’ visit to Columbia, with pictures of campus, posing in a mock uniform with Staley. But none of that is available right now. Everything is Zoom calls now. Not only (warning: self-pity ahead) does it make keeping track of recruiting much more difficult, but it has some high school players feeling left in the lurch.
(Shameless tease ahead:)
Parents and players are worried. Remember that the class of 2023 just finished its freshman year of high school. These are young girls, still growing and developing as basketball players. Not everyone is a Malaysia Fulwiley - a generational talent whose ability is evident in middle school. They are caught in a purgatory, trying to make the best of an unprecedented situation.
Next week I’ll introduce one of these young ladies and talk about the struggles she is going through.
