Last week, South Carolina basketball officially hired Winston Gandy from Duke to replace Fred Chmiel as an assistant coach on Dawn Staley’s staff. Gandy’s hire brought with it some optimism about the Gamecocks’ chances to land Blue Devil transfer guards Celeste Taylor and Shayeann Day-Wilson. The starting backcourt both entered the transfer portal in recent weeks, Taylor only doing so after Gandy resigned from his coaching job in Durham.
In recent days, both Taylor and Day-Wilson announced their college decisions. Taylor, a New York native who was Duke’s leading scorer and who won the ACC’s Defensive Player of the Year Award for the 2022-2023 season, chose Ohio State. Day-Wilson, the second-leading scorer and starting point guard for the Blue Devils last season, took her talents almost as far as possible away from her native Toronto, Canada and elected to finish her career with the Miami Hurricanes who recently lost famous twin guards Haley and Hanna Cavinder.
Both Taylor and Day-Wilson would have been useful players for the Gamecocks, but Dawn Staley has her team in the mix for other big-time talents in the transfer portal.
Junior College National Player of the Year Sakima Walker from Northwest Florida State College is a 6’5″ forward that is heavily considering South Carolina. In addition to her visit to Columbia this week, she has also visited Ole Miss recently.
The top available transfer is DePaul defection Aneesah Morrow. Morrow recently announced a top-3 that consisted of South Carolina, LSU, and Southern Cal. The 6’1″ forward averaged 25 points and 12 rebounds per game last year at DePaul.
The Gamecocks are in on several other prospects, as well, but Walker and Morrow are the most public right now. Dawn Staley announced that “A birdie just flew in the nest” on Twitter over the weekend, but it is unclear who the commitment could be. The Gamecocks are also involved with Oregon transfer guard Te-Hina Paopao.