ICYMI: Fans can get a first look at South Carolina Basketball on Sunday

On Sunday, South Carolina basketball fans can get their first look at Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks.

The new-look Carolina team will be taking on Rutgers at Colonial Life Arena in an exhibition game in honor of the late Nikki McCray-Penson who passed away earlier this year after fighting breast cancer. McCray-Penson spent a decade coaching at South Carolina and was an assistant at Rutgers when she was forced to step away from the game.

The exhibition will be free to the public, but the Gamecocks will take up donations for In the Middle, a non-profit charity that helps financially support women with breast cancer and their families.

The matchup with the Scarlet Knights will be fans’ first on-court look at the 2023-2024 version of the South Carolina basketball team.

Carolina lost more talent from last year’s roster than any other team in the country as five Gamecocks were drafted in the 2023 WNBA Draft (Aliyah Boston, Laeticia Amihere, Zia Cooke, Brea Beal, and Victaria Saxton) and two more senior contributors graduated.

The team certainly is not void of talent, however. Reigning SEC 6th Woman of the Year Kamilla Cardoso is expected to start this season and was named to the preseason All-SEC first team.

Contributors from last season like Raven Johnson and Bree Hall are joined by most-improved candidates Sania Feagin, Ashlyn Watkins, and Chloe Kitts and newcomers Te-Hina Paopao (transfer, Oregon), Sakima Walker (transfer, Northwest Florida State), MiLaysia Fulwiley (5-star freshman), Tessa Johnson (4-star freshman), and Sahnya Jah (4-star freshman).

The exhibition game against Rutgers won’t show the fans much in terms of playing style or scheme, but it might give a preliminary answer to one of the FAMs’ biggest offseason questions: With the whole starting lineup gone from last year, who will start this season?

At this point, it seems extremely likely that Cardoso will start down low and that Te-Hina Paopao will play one of the guard spots and function like a point guard at times. Other than that? The lineup is unclear.

Johnson and Fulwiley are both candidates to start alongside Paopao at guard. Feagin, Watkins, Walker, and Kitts could all play next to Cardoso down low. Kitts could also play on the wing, and Hall has experience out there, as well. Even the less-touted freshmen Johnson and Jah are big-time players with some positional versatility who could play as off-ball guards or wings.

The Gamecocks enter the season ranked 6th in the preseason AP poll and 2nd in the preseason SEC rankings.