Madina Okot picked up major honors this week, earning both SEC and USBWA Player of the Week, but South Carolina believes her rise is far from over.
With just 4:11 remaining at Louisville, Dawn Staley signaled for a timeout. The Gamecocks were down 73–68, their biggest deficit of the night. They hadn’t scored in more than three minutes, and what had once been a comfortable 11-point advantage was collapsing into what looked like a second straight loss.
Staley’s message was direct: feed the post and get Okot going.
“We all know Madina is a great player,” Joyce Edwards said the week before in Las Vegas. “We knew coming in she was going to be a star. I feel like she’s finally coming into her true self. She’s dominant in the paint. Hard to stop her. She’s very mobile. Great overall player. Now you’re seeing it.”
Coming out of the huddle, a slow-building pick-and-roll between Okot and Raven Johnson produced two free throws for Johnson. After both teams traded empty trips, South Carolina secured another stop.
Okot rose above the pack for the rebound and fired the ball to Johnson to spark the break. With no one picking up Okot trailing the play, Johnson delivered a return pass for an easy layup.
“That’s Madina, that’s the things she does,” Johnson said. “The coaches tell her to be dominant. She probably dwells on the missed layups that she had, but she finished the game like she should. That’s what we need.”
That bucket became the first of three straight scores from Okot that swung the lead back to South Carolina. She tallied nine points and seven boards in the fourth quarter alone. With All-Americans Ta’Niya Latson and Joyce Edwards on the roster—and Tessa Johnson dropping 20 points that night—it was Okot who carried the Gamecocks when the pressure was highest.
“That was our number one option, is to get her the ball; she’s a high percentage shooter,” Staley explained.
Okot wasn’t flawless. In the closing seconds, she missed three of four free throws that could have secured the win earlier. She also misfired on some early layups—an issue magnified after the team’s Texas loss. Staley emphasized she wants Okot to keep both her strengths and mistakes in perspective: grow from the misses, but don’t ignore the impact she made.
“I think Madina has to be in more situations like this to continue to rise to the challenge,” she said. “I know she’ll probably spend a lot of time just beating herself up regarding free throws, the missed free throws, and the missed layups, but I mean, you look in the stat sheet, she’s 10 for 16. She’s got 13 rebounds, 23 points. And she probably doesn’t think she played well, but we don’t win if she’s not on our side.”
Okot backed up her Louisville performance with another strong outing against NC Central: 10 points and nine rebounds in just 11 minutes, before sitting out the rest of the game due to illness.
Through the season so far, Okot is averaging 14.8 points and 11.1 rebounds, ranking in the top 20 nationally in field goal percentage at 60.95% and in the top 10 in rebounds per game. Her seven double-doubles place her just behind Raegan Beers, who has eight.
Her development mirrors the journeys of Aliyah Boston and Kamilla Cardoso—two dominant bigs who also needed time early in their careers before embracing the role Staley envisioned for them. Staley pushed Boston for years to be “dominant,” the same standard she’s now applying to Okot. And like Cardoso, Okot avoids the spotlight and prefers letting her teammates speak for her.
Still, Okot appears to be adapting faster than her predecessors. In just a month of action, she has made major strides. And her teammates believe the expectations will only rise from here.
“We keep asking her and telling her and pushing her and encouraging her to be dominant. We have that standard for her, and she’s just meeting that standard,” Tessa Johnson said. “Soon we’re gonna have to exceed the standard.”
