Another Ta'Lon Cooper? South Carolina basketball in on another Minnesota point guard transfer

Arguably the most important player on the floor for the South Carolina basketball team during their record-setting 2023-2024 turnaround season was point guard Ta'Lon Cooper.

Cooper, a South Carolina native, attended an HBCU (Morehead State) out of high school before transferring to the Minnesota Golden Gophers and, ultimately, the South Carolina Gamecocks. He played his best ball at USC and was an All-SEC player who was a big-time contributor on both offense and defense while leading the country in half-court assist-to-turnover ratio.

This offseason, head coach Lamont Paris has the Gamecocks involved in the transfer portal recruitment of a player with a similar story.

Elijah Hawkins, another point guard who attended an HBCU (Howard) before transferring to Minnesota, is in the transfer portal and has been in contact with the Gamecock coaching staff, according to a report from The Portal Report.

Hawkins is not as big as Cooper, but he shares some similar traits. Like Cooper, Hawkins is a big-time passer and a really good 3-point shooter. He is also a good defender, though, a different type of good defender than Cooper. Instead of using size, strength, and basketball IQ, Hawkins relies on elite quickness and good hands (and basketball IQ) to be disruptive on that end of the floor.

In a game against Penn State, Hawkins set the Minnesota single-game record for assists by dropping 17 dimes, and he finished the season with the most assists by any Golden Gopher in program history (247). He averaged 7.5 assists per game this year and had a career-low in turnovers per game, just over 2.5.

As a scorer, Hawkins can get to the rim with elite quickness and a tight handle. He is also a 38% career 3-point shooter and shot 37% and 36% from distance the past two seasons.

Hawkins made the All-MEAC team while at Howard and the All-Big 10 squad while at Minnesota and has become a highly sought-after player since entering the transfer portal earlier this week.

You can watch some of his highlights here.