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South Carolina ladies’s basketball will go with out senior sensation Chloe Kitts because it seeks a return to the nationwide title sport.
The South Carolina Gamecocks must go with out one among their high-flyers this season.
The ladies’s basketball program introduced on Monday that ahead Chloe Kitts might be misplaced for the season after tearing her ACL. Kitts, 21, was set to enter her senior marketing campaign and has been a mainstay within the Gamecocks’ beginning 5 over the past two excursions.
“Whereas this isn’t how I anticipated my senior season would go, I’m trusting God’s timing and function,” Kitts mentioned in a submit thanking well-wishers on her social channels. “I’ll proceed to steer, assist, and push my staff from the sidelines. We now have massive issues forward!”
Kitts was anticipated to play a giant position in South Carolina’s quest to return to the NCAA Ladies’s Basketball nationwide championship sport. Signing on in Columbia as a five-star recruit out of DME Academy, Kitts leaped into the beginning 5 throughout her sophomore season and notably earned a double-double within the Gamecocks’ most up-to-date nationwide championship win over Iowa in 2024.
She averaged 10.2 factors and seven.7 rebounds in 38 showings final yr, rating within the SEC’s prime 10 in complete rebounds in each the offensive and defensive subgenres. Through the SEC Match, Kitts upped her scoring to 16.7 factors whereas capturing over 74 % from the sector as USC took house the title for the third straight season.
Daybreak Staley on Kitts’ ACL Harm: ” We Hate This for Chloe”
Kitts earned the occasion’s MVP honor for her efforts, following within the footsteps of fellow achieved Gamecocks like Aliyah Boston, Mikiah Herbert Harrigan, and A’ja Wilson. She had been projected as a mid-to-late first-round choose in a number of 2026 WNBA mock drafts.
“We hate this primary for Chloe, who has labored extremely exhausting to change into the most effective model of herself on the court docket this season,” longtime South Carolina head coach Daybreak Staley mentioned in an announcement from this system. “Her teammates are able to stepping up, and I do know that her aggressive fireplace and tenacity might be felt from the sidelines as she pours what she will be able to into them to make sure our staff’s success.”
To Staley’s level, South Carolina does carry a superb little bit of potent expertise on its roster regardless of shedding Kitts, WNBA rookie standout Te-Hina Paopao, and LSU-bound MiLaysia Fulwiley, Kitts’ fellow SEC tourney MVP. Whereas shedding Fulwiley to the switch portal, the Gamecocks did receive the nation’s main scorer, Ta’Niya Latson, from Florida State, and Kenyan-born standout Madina Okot from Mississippi State.
Earlier this month, the Gamecocks acquired to shore up their post-game by including four-star recruit Kelsi Andrews from the Class of 2026.
By way of who replaces Kitts, a serious alternative surfaces for equally constructed sophomore Joyce Edwards, a sixth girl who led South Carolina in scoring as a freshman with 12.7 factors per sport. For these efforts and extra, the Gatorade Nationwide Participant of the 12 months and McDonald’s All-American Sport MVP joined Boston and Wilson as the one USC freshmen to earn first-team All-SEC honors.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
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