Two of the Gamecocks’ most important pieces sat out an entire season. Now they’re putting in the hardest work of their lives to make sure 2026-27 is unforgettable
These are not players going through the motions of recovery. These are players who have stared down adversity, weathered storms that would have broken lesser competitors, and made a decision — together and individually — that they are coming back. And they are coming back better.
Two Different Journeys. One Common Destination.
To understand how powerful this comeback story is, you first have to understand what both Watkins and Kitts went through to get to this moment.
Ashlyn Watkins went down with a concerning knee injury a few minutes into her team’s January 5 game against Mississippi State. Two days later, news broke that she had suffered a torn ACL, which prompted her to miss the rest of the 2024-25 campaign. The timing was brutal. It was a devastating blow for Dawn Staley’s squad. While they did well enough without Watkins all the way until the national championship game against UConn, their lack of frontcourt depth handicapped them against Geno Auriemma’s Huskies, which led to a UConn blowout win.
But the ACL wasn’t the only battle Watkins was fighting. Prior to the season, Watkins was arrested in August and charged with first-degree assault and battery and kidnapping — charges that were later dismissed — and she was suspended from all team activities before being reinstated after completing a pre-trial intervention program. To go through all of that — the legal cloud, the suspension, the eventual return, and then to have her knee give out in January — was an almost incomprehensible amount of hardship packed into a single season.
Watkins announced via social media that she would take the entire 2025-26 season away from basketball: “With everything that’s happened this year, I’m going to take some time off to focus on myself, my community, my faith, and my family, so that I can grow as an individual and attempt to master this journey of life.”
That wasn’t weakness. That was wisdom.
For Chloe Kitts, the cruelty came in a different form — and the timing was perhaps even more gut-wrenching. South Carolina’s starting forward tore her ACL in her right knee during practice in September 2025 — just days before what was supposed to be her senior season began. The 6-foot-2 forward had to undergo surgery and would miss the entire 2025-26 campaign.
The timing of Kitts’ injury raised questions about her professional prospects as well. She was projected to be a first-round pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft, but ACL injuries often require a recovery period of at least a year, potentially delaying her entry into the professional league.
“Thank you to everyone who has reached out with love and support,” Kitts wrote on Instagram. “While this isn’t how I expected my senior season would go, I’m trusting God’s timing and purpose. I’ll continue to lead, support and push my team from the sidelines.”
She attended every game. Cheered every possession. Led from a bench she wasn’t supposed to be sitting on. And when the cameras weren’t on her, she was in the gym.
Into the Ring: The Boxing Gym Becomes Their Sanctuary
The photograph of Watkins and Kitts in the boxing gym with their trainer isn’t just a feel-good snapshot. It represents a deliberate, creative, and comprehensive approach to rebuilding their bodies from the inside out. And boxing — a discipline that demands full-body conditioning, mental sharpness, footwork, core strength, and explosive movement — is at the center of it.
Working with their gym trainer, both players have been putting in daily sessions that go far beyond the typical rehabilitation protocol. This is not passive recovery. This is aggressive, intentional, joyful preparation for what is coming next.
Boxing and bag work has become the cornerstone of their training. The heavy bag doesn’t just build upper body strength — it develops coordination, rhythm, balance, and above all, mental toughness. For two players who have spent months at the mercy of injuries that took control out of their hands, walking into a boxing gym and throwing combinations against a bag is an act of reclaiming power. The repetition, the breath control, the discipline of the craft mirrors everything that has made both of them elite basketball players — and now it’s rebuilding them.
Weight training and lifting has been equally central to the process. Building the muscles around the knee — particularly the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes — is essential for ACL recovery. Both players have been in the weight room consistently, pulling lifts, doing squats, building the structural support that their knees will need when they return to live game action. For Watkins, whose 6-foot-3 frame is built for frontcourt dominance, maintaining and rebuilding her physical strength during this extended period has been critical. For Kitts, every pound of leg strength she adds is another layer of protection and power for a return.
Push-ups, core work, and functional strength training have rounded out the daily grind. These aren’t glamorous exercises, but they are foundational. The ability to absorb contact, hold position in the post, fight for rebounds, and protect the ball all starts from the core. Both players have been putting in the unglamorous reps every single day — the kind of work that doesn’t show up in highlights but shows up in the moments that matter most.
Jogging and cardio conditioning has been progressively reintroduced as both players’ knees have strengthened. ACL reconstruction typically requires 9-12 months for full recovery, and athletes are generally advised to wait at least nine months before returning to competitive play to minimize the risk of reinjury. The running has been methodical and carefully monitored — starting slow, building distance, building pace, building confidence. Every mile logged is a message sent to the basketball world that these two are not done.
And for Chloe Kitts specifically, hiking has become part of the recovery toolkit. The uneven terrain of hiking trails forces the knee to work through a wider, more natural range of motion than flat-surface running allows. It builds stability in ways that a treadmill simply cannot replicate. The incline work strengthens the muscles above and below the knee joint. The downhill sections challenge balance and joint control. For someone rehabbing an ACL, hiking is medicine disguised as a walk in the woods — and Kitts has been embracing it fully as part of her path back.
The Frustration That Fueled the Fire
Let’s not sanitize this. Both of these young women went through periods of genuine frustration and darkness.
For Watkins, watching an entire season play out from the sidelines — a season that included a national championship game run — while carrying the weight of everything she had been through off the court was an enormous burden. She wrote openly that the past year had been “a roller coaster” and acknowledged that while she usually likes to keep her personal life private, she felt she owed those who showed her love and encouragement some insight into what she had been going through. That kind of vulnerability takes courage. And the decision to take a full year away — not to quit, but to rebuild from the ground up — took even more.
For Kitts, the frustration of watching her projected WNBA Draft stock shift and seeing her senior season disappear before it ever began was its own particular heartbreak. She remained actively involved with the team during her recovery, attending games and participating in limited practice drills. That active involvement was both a blessing and a daily reminder of what she was missing. Being that close to the game she loves, in the building she calls home, and not being able to step on the floor — that is a unique kind of pain that only athletes who have been through it truly understand.
Fans watching from the outside recognized it too, with one supporter writing: “We will miss her leadership, toughness, competitiveness, but I know she’ll be back better than ever.”
And that’s exactly what both players have chosen to believe — not that the setbacks were the end of their stories, but that they were the chapters that would make the comeback worth reading.
Dawn Staley Believes. The Gamecock Family Believes.
When Watkins announced her year away, head coach Dawn Staley released a statement that captured everything her program stands for: “Everyone in our program is valued as the whole of who they are, not just as a player or coach or staff member and not just for the time they are on our team. We will support Ashlyn as she works through getting her body and mind stronger; and we will be here when she is ready to return.”
That is not a coaching statement. That is a family statement.
When Kitts went down, Staley was equally measured and supportive: “We hate this first for Chloe, who has worked incredibly hard to become the best version of herself on the court this season. Her teammates are capable of stepping up, and I know that her competitive fire and tenacity will be felt from the sidelines.”
And in February of this year, Staley made it official — confirming to media that both Kitts and Watkins would be back for the 2026-27 season. Kitts was able to take a redshirt year and preserve her final year of eligibility, while Staley said Watkins was expected to return sometime in May.
What Their Return Means for South Carolina
The Gamecocks are going to lose significant pieces heading into next season. Point guards Raven Johnson and Ta’Niya Latson are both out of eligibility, as is Maryam Dauda. The returns of Kitts and Watkins represent major additions to a roster that will need experienced frontcourt leadership.
Over three seasons at the University of South Carolina, Kitts has played 93 games and scored 752 points. Watkins has played 84 games and scored 610 points. These are not fringe contributors returning — these are two of the program’s most impactful forwards, both of whom have championship DNA running through everything they do.
Kitts at her best — averaging 10.2 points and a team-high 7.7 rebounds while winning the 2025 SEC Tournament MVP — is as good as any forward in the country. And Watkins, a former McDonald’s All-American who blocks shots, protects the rim, and anchors the defense in ways that don’t always show up on a stat sheet, is exactly the kind of player who makes everyone around her better.
Both of them, fully healthy, fully motivated, and carrying the hunger that only a year of watching from the sidelines can generate, walking back into Colonial Life Arena together — that is a story that Gamecock fans should be counting down to.
Gloves On. Ready to Fight.
That photo in the boxing gym says everything. The smiles are real. The gloves are on. The trainer is beside them. The work is being done — every single day, in a gym where nobody is watching except the people who matter most.
Ashlyn Watkins and Chloe Kitts didn’t break when it got hard. They laced up, stepped into the ring — literally and figuratively — and started throwing punches back at everything that tried to take them down.
The 2026-27 South Carolina Gamecocks season is still months away. But the comeback? That’s already in progress. 🖤❤️🥊
