First Cuts and First Tastes: South Carolina’s Newest Gamecocks Experience March Madness Tradition
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — South Carolina has a system for everything. Including cutting down nets.
The Gamecocks have been here so many times — six consecutive Final Fours, multiple national championships — that the post-victory ladder climb has been choreographed into something resembling a ceremony. Snip the net. Pass the scissors. Turn right, hold up your piece. Turn left, hold it up again. Make sure everyone gets the shot. Freddy Ready, the man who developed the procedure, oversees it like a stage director.
On Monday night at Golden 1 Center, five members of South Carolina’s program experienced it for the first time. And the results were as illuminating as they were joyful.
The New Gamecocks
The group of first-year Gamecocks who climbed that ladder includes senior transfers Ta’Niya Latson and Madina Okot, and freshmen Agot Makeer, Ayla McDowell, and Alicia Tournebize. Each arrived in Columbia for different reasons, but they share the same common thread — they came to compete for championships, and Monday night delivered on that promise for the first time.
For Latson, the moment carried particular weight. She is a high school national champion who spent three years at Florida State without ever advancing past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. She transferred to South Carolina specifically to change that narrative, reuniting with her high school teammate Raven Johnson in the process. When Johnson mentioned earlier this season that the SEC regular season title was her fifth consecutive crown, Latson’s response was telling — “Gee, must be nice” — a quip that captured both her humor and her hunger.
The regular season title did not come with a net-cutting ceremony. South Carolina fell short in the SEC Tournament, which meant Latson’s first experience with the tradition had to wait until Monday. When it finally arrived, she was still processing it in the locker room afterward.
“Never. That was my first time. It was a really good experience,” Latson said. “I feel excited. I’m happy. This is what I came to South Carolina for. To be doing it alongside Raven, it just means so much to me.”
The last sentence is the one that lingers. Latson did not just come to South Carolina for championships in the abstract — she came to share them with someone she has known since before either of them played a college game. That kind of personal meaning transforms a net-cutting ceremony from a tradition into a genuine memory.
Lost in Translation
If Latson’s moment was emotional, Tournebize’s was something closer to comedic — and entirely endearing.
The French freshman was not unfamiliar with the concept of cutting down nets. The custom exists in European basketball. But there is a critical difference: in Europe, you only cut the net when you win the final championship. Not a conference title. Not a regional. Only the last game of the year.
“It’s like when you win the final, final, final,” Tournebize said. “But we’re doing this stuff, too.”
The procedural details were another matter entirely. Where the veteran Gamecocks moved through the choreography instinctively — snip, pass the scissors, turn right, hold up the piece, turn left, hold it up again — Tournebize started to climb back down without executing the pose. Freddy Ready had to intervene before she descended, stopping her mid-ladder to make sure she completed the ritual properly.
“It was nice,” she said, giggling. “Everybody cutting a little piece and after it, posing.”
There is something genuinely charming about this moment. South Carolina has built one of the most polished, professional programs in women’s college basketball — and here is a freshman from France, bewildered and delighted in equal measure, being gently redirected by the program’s net-cutting coordinator. It is a reminder that beneath the dynasty, there are still young people experiencing things for the first time.
What It Means for the Stretch Run
The deeper significance of Monday night’s ceremony is what it signals about South Carolina’s roster construction heading into Phoenix. Latson and Okot arrived as transfers with WNBA draft stock and championship ambitions. The freshmen arrived as highly-recruited prospects stepping into a program with established expectations. All five of them now know what it feels like to climb a ladder in March and take a piece of a net home.
That experience matters. The Gamecocks have two more games to play. Win them both, and they cut down nets again — this time for the one that counts most. And when that moment comes, Tournebize will know exactly when to pose.
