Eniya Russell, South Carolina’s forgotten freshman, will try to carve out a role with her grit and versatility.
Russell finds herself sandwiched between two top-ranked recruiting classes. There was the historic 2019 class that had four top ten players. Her signing was overshadowed by what was happening on the court, as the Gamecocks were turning heads with wins over Maryland and Baylor. And then all of this summer the talk has been about the 2021 class that features three of the top-four players. In between, there is Russell.
Other, higher-ranked 2020 players looked at South Carolina’s roster and wanted no part of it. Why fight for minutes for three years when you could go somewhere else and play right away. But Russell wasn’t afraid of the challenge and stuck it out as the only member of South Carolina’s 2020 class. She was willing to earn her spot.
In the spring, Russell was named a McDonald’s All-American. She joined the likes of Aliyah Boston, Brea Beal, Zia Cooke, and A’ja Wilson with that honor, but the game was canceled due to the pandemic and Russell never got that showcase opportunity. Her national recruiting ranking remained down at 43.
That’s not bad, but it isn’t eye-catching when most of your future teammates are in the single-digits. In that regard, Russell is something of a throwback to the days when Staley and the Gamecocks had to mine for diamonds in the rough. They were good at it, too. The last time the Gamecocks signed a guard ranked in the forties, it was #46 Tiffany Mitchell, the future two-time SEC Player of the Year (who likely would have been the first three-time winner if Wilson hadn’t won it Mitchell’s senior year).
Russell was a point guard in high school, but she was often listed as a combo guard by recruiting services. That versatility will serve her well. Staley’s preference has been to start freshman point guards out off the ball to make it easier to adapt. Russell also has something the Gamecocks have been missing for a long time: size in the backcourt. The other four guards on the roster are between 5-7 and 5-9, while Russell is 6-1 and LeLe Grissett, who is more of a wing than a pure guard, is 6-2. It’s the first time since 6-0 Allisha Gray and 6-2 Kaela Davis that the Gamecocks have had that kind of size at the guard position.
“I always look back on our 2017 class and say we won a national championship with big guards,” Staley said recently. “We were big. We certainly want that look in because it worked to our benefit.”
Russell uses her size well on defense, and that will probably be what gets her on the court most this season as she refines her offense. She could be a player in the mold of Doniyah Cliney, who won a national championship and started 58 games in her career, but with a better three-point shot. Like Russell, Cliney was an overlooked recruit who worked hard and did the little things to make her teammates better. If Russell does the same, nobody will care what her recruiting ranking was.
