As usual, Dawn Staley met with local media on Tuesday ahead of South Carolina’s next matchup against Winthrop. But this time, she wasn’t the one delivering the updates — instead, the updates were delivered to her.
Reporters informed Staley that star sophomore forward Joyce Edwards had just been named SEC Player of the Week for the first time in her career. Staley was caught completely off guard.
“Did she get that? When did that come out? I missed that,” Staley said, surprised by the announcement.
She immediately turned to share the news with her team, and Edwards’ teammates and coaches erupted in cheers.
The recognition comes after a stellar week from Edwards, who helped South Carolina move to 4-0 with wins over Clemson and No. 8 Southern Cal. Across those matchups, Edwards averaged 17.5 points, nine rebounds, three assists, 2.5 blocks, and 1.5 steals. She led the team with 18 points against USC and added 10 rebounds for her first double-double of the season.
Staley made it clear how pleased she was with her sophomore’s growth.
“It’s great,” Staley said. “Joyce is finding her footing and she’s very comfortable with what she’s doing out there on both sides of the ball. I just like her activity on both sides of the ball, I like her competitiveness and her will to win. It’s on display every time we step on the floor.”
Heading into the year, Staley challenged Edwards to elevate her defensive impact. Through four games, Edwards is proving she’s up for it.
She currently leads the No. 2 Gamecocks in scoring at 18 points per game, while also averaging 6.5 rebounds, second only to Madina Okot. Defensively, Edwards has been a force at the rim — her three blocks against Southern Cal were a career high, and her current average of 2.3 blocks per game is already double last year’s pace.
Edwards said embracing the two-way challenge is more about focus than anything else.
“It was more of a focus thing,” Edwards said. “Putting my mind on something, I feel like I’m a really competitive person and I want to really meet my goals. I feel like she’s just challenging me in a way, so I can be a better overall player. But especially my defense. I’ve been really focusing on staying in a stance, staying low, just being disciplined overall.”
South Carolina now enters a lighter stretch in its schedule following the emotional win over Southern Cal. The Gamecocks face Winthrop on Wednesday and Queens on Sunday — both games they’re expected to dominate. But Edwards said the team still takes every matchup seriously.
“Every game has their own lessons,” Edwards said. “Every team does something a little different. So you just go in a game with an open mind. You do what you usually do, you show a lot of effort.”
She added that the Gamecocks executed their defensive plan impressively in their last outing, and she hopes to see them continue to polish their offensive rhythm.
“I feel like we can execute our defense really well. I feel like our game plan that we put in, we executed well…I feel like our offense, we get a little stagnant sometimes. Just keeping our offense in the flow, I mean, we kind of realized we had that problem in previous games, but just continue to work on that.”
The Gamecocks will look to build on their undefeated start while Edwards continues emerging as one of the SEC’s brightest young stars.
