“We are just taking it game by game, step by step, and practice by practice and we are just going to keep working hard,” forward A’ja Wilson said during media day, smiling.
It was a very senior-ish answer full of quiet confidence mixed with modesty and realism for a player that is still so young. Wilson stopped short of saying that a national championship was the team’s focus right now, but is confident nonetheless.
“We are all playing with that chip on our shoulder,” Wilson said. “I think the majority of the team has that bad taste in their mouth because we want to get back (to the Final Four) again.”
For at least the next three to four years, the Gamecocks will be stocked with the most talent ever assembled in the history of South Carolina women’s basketball. With a coach like Dawn Staley and players like Wilson, anything less than a title would be a letdown. Wilson should be more comfortable in this high stakes situation than most people. She has been under pressure since her middle school years when she was becoming the basketball prodigy she is today.
A’ja Wilson came onto the scene as a one-woman-wrecking crew for the Heathwood Hall Highlanders volleyball team in 2010. That was in the fall, and before the basketball season.
When she settled into her predestined sport, she was indomitable. She played all five positions, was a one-woman press break, had better handles than any girl out there and regularly brought the ball up the court only to pass it off to a player on the wing, set up in the post, get the ball back and score with a post move more polished than any move that could be seen in the varsity boys game that would be played after hers.
When Wilson was a senior at Heathwood, a massive banner of her spanned almost from floor to ceiling in the massive gym. The stands were full of college coaches in matching track suits and Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma posed for pictures with fans courtside while scouting Wilson.
The buzz did not fade away when she sank a three-pointer to send the state championship game into overtime and then scored all of her team’s points in the extra period to win the title, or when she won a gold medal with the United States FIBA U19 team at the 2013 World Championships in Lithuania.
The hype surrounding Wilson continued past her first year of college, during which she won the SEC Freshman of the Year award while also appearing on the All-SEC first team. More important than individual awards, Wilson was a key player on a South Carolina team that advanced all the way to the Final Four and had a record of 34-3.
Wilson is not a sophomore in basketball years. With all of her AAU travel ball and her play on the United States U18 and U19 teams in the FIBA World Championships make her at least an upperclassman in terms of basketball knowledge and how she approaches the game. It shows. At 6-foot-5, Wilson has the size to bang in the low post with any girl in the country. She averaged 13.1 points and 6.6 rebounds a game last year while averaging just 19.8 minutes of playing time, barely under half of a game.
But Wilson also posses the talent and skills to play on the wing, handle the ball and even step out to shoot 3-pointers, something she intends to do more this season. This unique combination of ability and size is the reason why she was ranked No. 1 out of high school.
This season, Staley has made the decision to speed up the team’s pace of play. This makes sense since Wilson and fellow sophomore Bianca Cuevas, a point guard, both have what it takes to get up and down the court in a hurry.
Reigning SEC Player of the Year Tiffany Mitchell is still the best player on this year’s team and will be relied on heavily throughout the year, but the decision to play faster is one that was made with A’ja Wilson in mind. This is becoming Wilson’s team and when Mitchell leaves after this season, Wilson will be the first one to step up.
Wilson has spent her whole life in Columbia and has already become a household name. It might not be long before we see a No. 22 hanging from the rafters in Colonial Life Arena.