‘I’m not there yet’: South Carolina’s Joyce Edwards is still learning — and winning

South Carolina forward Joyce Edwards paused as she contemplated the question at hand: What was the last thing you learned about yourself as a person or player?

Edwards repeated the question to herself before steadying for an answer.

“Probably that I’m not there yet,” she said. “I feel like every time I think that I’m comfortable, every time I think that I get to the point where I want to be, there’s something else that knocks me off just a little bit to keep me going.”

It’s a candid admission for Edwards, who already is considered one of the best women’s basketball talents in the country. Just last season, she was named an All-America honorable mention and a member of the All-SEC first team as a freshman.

This season has been about learning to adapt to play through the rigidity of the game as the sophomore strives to find an agreeable form of comfort on the floor. That, naturally, hasn’t come without growing pains. Ahead of the No. 3-ranked Gamecocks’ highly anticipated matchup with No. 6-ranked LSU on Saturday (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC), however, Edwards finds herself playing arguably her best basketball of the season.

To Edwards, there’s an acceptance that the ebbs and flows of the season are all just a part of a sometimes arduous path to greatness, which all parties agree is the charted destination on her current course. To understand Edwards requires an understanding of the habits instilled and commitment made long before she put on a Gamecocks uniform. Learning of her journey brings the realization that South Carolina’s next homegrown star may be only scratching the surface.

“We know she’s that type of player that’s going to elevate, work hard every day, and take a program to its full potential,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said. 

At the beginning of Edwards’ basketball story is her father. 

Charlie Edwards was his daughter’s first coach, starting when she was just 4 years old. An avid women’s basketball fan, he trained Edwards to play like players he had admired in the sport – Candace Parker, Maya Moore, Chamique Holdsclaw and later A’ja Wilson.

“I probably would not have a [basketball] journey without my dad,” Edwards said. 

During most Gamecocks home games, Edwards, at some point, will peer up at the stands, attempting to connect with her dad for a quick nod of reassurance from the person she trusts unconditionally with her game.

“It kind of keeps her calm a lot of times more than anything,” Charlie Edwards said. “I give her the thumbs-up to let her know she’s doing what she needs to be doing and everything will be OK.”

Though she was not born in the state of South Carolina – Edwards’ family moved to Camden, South Carolina, when she was 9 – she is very much considered the program’s latest state product. Edwards is part of a group of recent top South Carolina recruits to play for the program, including Ashlyn Watkins and the recently departed MiLaysia Fulwiley.

She entered the program as the highest-ranked recruit since Wilson, South Carolina’s most notable hometown product, toting the highest of expectations before ever putting on a Gamecocks jersey. Years before she would commit to South Carolina, Edwards would attend Staley’s basketball camps and Gamecocks games, where she was a “mop girl” on the court.

Surely there’s pressure in being the hometown representation for one of the top programs in the country, but Staley said Edwards, more than any other previous South Carolinian recruit, seems unaffected. 

“I don’t even see her feel the pressure of what other South Carolinians felt,” Staley said. “We’re just used to having the best South Carolinian on our team. … She doesn’t really feel the pressure of having the state on her back.” 

Since she was a kid, Edwards excelled in the classroom. Throughout middle school and high school, she never received a B on a report card.

If she’s not working on her game, you can often find Edwards, who is majoring in environmental sciences, ready to nerd out to anyone who will listen, or better yet debate, about ecological topics impacting the planet — from global warming to renewable energy sources to the efficacy of electric vehicles. Edwards has aspirations of becoming an environmental lawyer.

“I’ll tell you one thing: If she thinks she’s right, she will not back down,” Charlie Edwards said. “And she does her homework, so she’s going to have all her stuff together when she comes.”

Edwards has always known the right ways and routes to study to yield a desired outcome. 

She came to South Carolina applying that straight-line approach to basketball. Staley mentioned on multiple occasions last season that Edwards would study an opponent so vigorously that she would anticipate an opponent’s play-action before it occurred, if it occurred at all. To Staley, basketball isn’t played in a straight line. She added that not accounting for the human variability that arises on a basketball court has been an Achilles’ heel for Edwards.

“Academically, yeah, that works. It’s just you and your task,” Staley said. “She’s super smart, but this ain’t academics, baby.”

The core of Staley’s instruction to Edwards this season has centered on the 6-foot-3 forward’s ability to make good decisions under duress. For Edwards, that can be knowing when to hunt her shot versus when to find a teammate or when to blow up a play versus force an action.

Edwards has demonstrated her ability to score this season. She has scored 20 points or more in 15 games, notching a career-high 34 against South Florida in December. Staley said sometimes they’ll need that high-scoring production from Edwards. Other nights, they’ll need a more all-around performance, even if that means lower scoring totals.

Two games, played back-to-back by the Gamecocks, show the growth potential for Edwards this season. In an overtime loss to Oklahoma in January, Edwards struggled. She shot just 25% from the floor while seemingly overcommitting to being a scoring threat for South Carolina and underutilizing other parts of her game. 

“I think Joyce falls into wanting to win. Everything she does is done because she wants to win,” Staley said. “Whether that is calling her own number, whether that is kicking it out, whether it’s going to get rebounds, whether it’s getting monstrous blocks. It stems from wanting to win.” 

Edwards’ penchant for winning was apparent early on, her father said, cultivated from familial competition with her older brother, Donovan. Charlie Edwards recalled an outing with the siblings during which he was teaching his son how to catch a football.

“He just kept dropping the ball,” he said. 

Edwards, who had stood by idly watching her big brother, asked her dad if she could give catching a try.

“She went out there and she would just catch everything,” Charlie Edwards said of his daughter, then 6 years old. “Her brother was like, ‘Oh my God.’ He actually had to bring himself up to speed because he didn’t want his little sister to make him look bad. She’s really been competitive her whole life.”

Three days after the Oklahoma loss, Edwards stuffed the stat sheet against Vanderbilt with 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists in a performance Staley called at the time Edwards’ best in a South Carolina uniform.

“I think the difference is Joyce basically showed us her entire skill set,” said Staley, who also emphasized that Edwards’ development is where it should be in her career. “Joyce is still very young and still trying to figure out what her power is. For me, her power is that she’s able to do whatever she puts to the forefront of her mind.”

In the five games since that Oklahoma loss, Edwards has averaged 21 points, 4.2 assists and 6.4 rebounds while shooting 70.2% from the field. She was recently named SEC Player of the Week.

Staley has said multiple times that Edwards’ work ethic is unmatched. Following a win over Oklahoma last season, she went as far as to say that it was borderline too much. 

As a freshman, Edwards made it a point to work out both before and after South Carolina’s team held practice. In addition, she worked with her dad whenever she found a spot in her game that she wanted to improve.

“You know, Joyce is a different soul. There’s some players like her – not all of them because all of them aren’t built like her; you got to let them figure it out,” Staley said of Edwards, who trains with her father multiple times a week. “I have to allow her to figure out what works for her.”

During the Final Four last April, after a big performance from Edwards in a win over Texas, teammate Raven Johnson was asked about the contributions from the then-freshman. After discussing how the team supported Edwards in overcoming a previous tournament slump to have a breakthrough game, Johnson commented on Edwards’ deep passion for the sport. 

“I think Joyce should get away from, not eat, sleep and breathe basketball all the time,” Johnson said. “Try to get away from it a little bit and come back to it.”

For Edwards, being close to the game is all about comfort. The more reps in the gym she can attain, the quicker she’ll reach the level of comfort she seeks on the floor. The sooner she achieves that comfort, the faster she’ll get to reaching her potential in the sport. 

“I have everything that I need physically in order to be successful on the court. I’ve been playing basketball for so long that it’s just kind of repetition,” Edwards said. “But getting over the mental hurdles of getting different [defensive] looks or double teams and finding open players and just trusting your eyes, trusting your game, being comfortable out there on the floor and being confident in what you’re going to do, I feel like all that comes into play with me.”

In Year 2, Edwards has made adjustments. She admitted that she experienced a period of burnout as a result of her training intensity from her freshman season. Edwards heeded the advice of Staley, focusing more on recovery before practices to protect her body from the rigors of a college basketball season.

Edwards’ relentless work ethic in basketball has been present from the beginning. When asked about their most memorable training memory, Edwards and her father zeroed in on a singular moment from when Edwards was in middle school. As a seventh grader in Camden, Edwards was already playing on her high school’s varsity team. During a game, she struggled to connect on her free throws.

“I think she went, like, one for nine or one for 10,” Charlie Edwards said. “I said, ‘Joyce, we want to work on this right now, because you can do better than this.’ People think a lot of times it’s the parents that’s pushing these kids. With Joyce, it’s not with us pushing her. She wanted to be the one to get better.”

Without access to an indoor gym, Edwards and her dad opted for an outdoor court as the sun began to set. What’s more, it was raining outside.  

They both remember that as Edwards was shooting free throws in the rain, they saw her high school coach driving by their postgame practice.

“She probably was like, ‘Man, they’re just relentless,’” Charlie Edwards said. “Her coach tells you to this day, ‘I couldn’t believe that she was out there.’”

As Edwards continues her career at South Carolina, she’ll have every opportunity to leave a mark on the program that could ultimately rival some of the all-time bests. Just last week she became the fifth-fastest South Carolina player to reach 1,000 career points, and she holds the highest point-per-game average for a Gamecocks sophomore since 1993-94.

For now, Edwards continues to learn more about herself as she continues to cultivate and develop her talent.

Staley doesn’t get the impression that Edwards is driven by legacy. That’s because to Staley, Edwards’ eventual legacy isn’t rooted in desire. It’s inevitable. 

“She is who she is. She’s comfortable in her skin, and she knows that’s what she’s going to do,” Staley said. “It’s not even a goal of hers. It’s just an absolute of what she would do no matter where she is.

“We’re just fortunate that she chose us.”

The post ‘I’m not there yet’: South Carolina’s Joyce Edwards is still learning — and winning appeared first on Andscape.