As expected, A’ja Wilson announced Wednesday that she is signing with the University of South Carolina.
The No. 2 Blue Star senior, a 6-foot-4 forward, disclosed her choice in a packed gym at the Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in Hopkins, S.C., and on ESPNU.
Even before Wilson’s decision, the Gamecocks had reeled in a Top 10 recruiting class to add to a team already pegged by many to be Top 5 in preseason rankings.
Coach Dawn Staley’s record-breaking 29-5 season included South Carolina’s first-ever SEC regular season championship, the SEC player of the year in sophomore guard Tiffany Mitchell, a No. 1 NCAA tournament seed and a finish in the Sweet 16 for the second time in three years.
Staley, who was also voted the SEC coach of the year, has turned the Gamecocks into a national force against some long odds. Her first big-time recruit, Kelsey Bone, left after one season for Texas A & M, and Staley had to reset in recruiting.
Her focus on attracting players from the Carolinas has paid off. Alaina Coates, a freshman forward, from Irmo, S.C., was the SEC sixth woman of the year. Mitchell is from Charlotte, the same home town as incoming post Jatarie White, Blue Star’s No. 3 senior. 
Junior forward Aleighsa Welch, another breakthrough player this season, is home-grown, as is starting guard Khadijah Sessions. Also part of the new freshman group is guard Kaydra Duckett (Blue Star No. 90) from Columbia.
Starting center Elem Ibiam hails from talent-rich metro Atlanta.
Blue Star national evaluator Chris Mennig rated South Carolina’s Class No. 8 in the country in the fall, before Wilson made her decision.
The other two members of the Gamecocks signing class come from the New York City area: guard Bianca Cuevas of the Bronx (No. 33) and Doniyah Cliney of Newark.
Staley, who loses only one little-used reserve center, was honored by the NCAA for spearheading one of the biggest attendance boosts — to an average of 5,600 this season — in the nation. She’s been as relentless a promoter of her program in the community as she has been on the recruiting trail.
South Carolina has all the pieces in place to make the next great leap — the Final Four, a place it hasn’t been since the ill-fated Pam Parsons era 35 years ago.
This is a different time, obviously, and South Carolina is a very different place than a program that for far too long wasn’t even nominally competitive with Tennessee, Georgia, LSU, Vanderbilt and other SEC powerhouses.
Now the Gamecocks will be the team to beat. They appeared to hit a wall in the SEC tournament, where they were thrashed by Kentucky, and ran into the UNC buzzsaw in the regionals.
How Staley prepares her team to be a national contender from the start of the season — they were picked for the middle of the pack in the SEC — will be critical.
For the moment, you’ve got to at least talk about the Gamecocks in the same breath as UConn and North Carolina, along with Tennessee, Texas A & M, Notre Dame, Kentucky and Baylor.
The NCAA champion Huskies have the second-best recruiting class coming in (behind UCLA) with Sadie Edwards, Gabby Williams, Kia Nurse and Courtney Ekmark to join player of the year Breanna Stewart and returning starters Moriah Jefferson and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis.
The Tar Heels, who vanquished South Carolina in the regionals and were among Wilson’s recruiting finalists (along with UConn and Tennessee), will be brimming with Diamond DeShields and company. The Lady Vols, Aggies and Wildcats, Carolina’s top SEC rivals for the moment, also return most of their starters.
South Carolina also figures to play at home in the NCAA tournament, since the early-round format has reverted to Top 16 seeds hosting. Under the previous predetermined set-up, the Gamecocks were barred from hosting because of an NCAA ban due to South Carolina’s official state flag that includes Confederate stars and bars.
For Staley to have gotten South Carolina to this point is a remarkable achievement.
