Dawn Staley's Gamecocks: Stacked Roster for 2022-23 Season

0:00On May 1st, Dawn Staley has led South Carolina women's basketball for 18 seasons, but she's rarely run a full roster of 15 players. That's changing now for the 2026-27 season after signing French standout Justine Lubens this week. She's the fifth commit in that class, rounding out a group with nine returners and Texas transfer Jordan Lee. Last year hit hard with injuries, dropping them to just 10 healthy players at times and forcing some games with only eight. Staley stuck to her plan of 12 or 13 max, even after the struggles, but mid-season help from Alicia Turnabies eased things a bit. Her smaller rosters have dominated anyway, piling up 511 wins, 9 SEC Tournament crowns, 8 final four runs, and three national titles. Titles, she only went full 15 once before in 2021-22 when they finished 35 and 2 and beat Yukon for the riding. Championship though, injuries trimmed it back quickly. Money talks in college ball these days with revenue sharing and NIL deals and Staley hinted at budget tweaks to make bigger rosters work.

1:06Still, she's competing at the top level financially, per her own words. With this stack group full of national talent, depth looks solid heading into next year. No more scraping by for the Gamecocks.