South Carolina Basketball: Gamecock star named All-American
By Kevin Miller
South Carolina basketball star Kamilla Cardoso has had a busy couple of weeks.
As her Gamecocks wrapped up the regular season, she had just gotten back to game action after spending some time playing with the Brazilian National Team. She got two games in against Arkansas and Tennessee before the SEC Tournament began.
The Gamecocks won a closer-than-anticipated game against Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals and then found themselves on the wrong side of a 24-point comeback in the semis against Tennessee. Then, down by 2 with 1 second remaining, Cardoso nailed her first-ever 3-pointer to send her team to SEC Tournament final.
In that final, the referees let things get out of hand from a physicality standpoint, and the two teams ended up in a bit of a scuffle near the final buzzer. Cardoso wound up pushing LSU's Flau'jae Johnson to the floor, resulting in an ejection.
USC was announced as the #1-overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, even though they will be without Cardoso in their first game. Then, on Monday, Cardoso was revealed as one of three current college basketball stars (along with Iowa's Caitlin Clark and UCLA's Kiki Rice) who will be featured in an ESPN docuseries called Full Court Press.
Now, Kamilla Cardoso made a little more news as she was selected as an All-American by the Sporting News. Cardoso made the 2nd team. Leading the SEC in both field goal percentage and blocked shots, she was among the best two-way players in the entire country this season.
The entire Sporting News All-American squad can be seen below:
1st Team
Caitlin Clark (Guard, Iowa Hawkeyes)
JuJu Watkins (Guard, Southern Cal Trojans)
Hannah Hidalgo (Guard, Notre Dame Fighting Irish)
Cameron Brink (Forward, Stanford Cardinal)
Elizabeth Kitley (Center, Virginia Tech Hokies)
2nd Team
Paige Bueckers (Guard, UConn Huskies)
Jacy Sheldon (Guard, Ohio State Buckeyes)
Raegen Beers (Forward, Oregon State Beavers)
Angel Reese (Forward, LSU Tigers)
Kamilla Cardoso (Center, South Carolina Gamecocks)
3rd Team
Dyaisha Fair (Guard, Syracuse Orange)
Madison Booker (Forward, Texas Longhorns)
Aaliyah Edwards (Forward, UConn Huskies)
Alissa Pili (Forward, Utah Utes)
Ayoka Lee (Center, Kansas State Wildcats)