'Be who I am:' Gameco*ck senior forward describes her plans for next season (2024)

COLUMBIA— Of course she’d like to be starting. Of course she’d like to have the offense and defense revolve around her.

It isn’t “settling.”

Sania Feagin didn’t have any kind of authoritative sit-down with anybody where she was told this is how it is, and she definitely didn’t walk to the coaching staff and say, “Hey, I’d like to play less.”

How does this work so well? How does a player only start three of 96 games in her career in this age of instant entitlement and the opportunity to play at five schools in five years and still have the wherewithal to produce at the same level as she always has at a moment’s notice?

“I just trust her,” Feagin said. “If I do have a question about playing time, I wouldn’t approach her. It would be more of a, ‘How would you trust me?’ talk.”

“Her” is, of course, South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley, who wouldn’t have recruited Feagin if she didn’t think she could be a star. Staley has said several times that Feagin needs to play more.

“I know she’s probably wanted to play a lot more throughout the season. But I hold her to her standard, I hold her to her personal and individual standard, to sometimes that equates to six minutes or five minutes or less,” Staley said during the Gameco*cks’ run to the national championship. “And it doesn’t feel good, but in order for us to do what we do today means she’s got to meet her standard. And we don’t sacrifice that.”

That sounds dictatorial, and it may be, especially on a team that above all preached and displayed selflessness on its way to an undefeated season and third national championship.

But Staley has also constantly championed Feagin as one of the integral pieces, a hardened-glue polymer linking a squad that has won two national titles in Feagin’s three years and was one win short of playing for a third. This past season, with a thinner bench than the previous two, Feagin increased her points, rebounds, blocks, steals and even assists— and minutes, most importantly— and she was right on her season average (6.7) in points during the Gameco*cks’ 9-0 postseason.

Feagin played crucial minutes in the SEC and NCAA tournaments, scoring crucial buckets with crucial rebounds. Look at her with her back turned, rebounding a missed Kamilla Cardoso free throw and putting it right back up for two points, USC down three in the second quarter of the national championship game.

That sums it up. Feagin’s always there. Ready to produce, ready to play, just ready. Even if it isn’t as much as perhaps she would like.

“I feel like sometimes throughout the year I’m frustrated and feel like I should be playing more. But trusting the process and giving me the consequences fuels my fire and makes me the player I am,” she said. “I view it just the same as I did coming in, being who I am. Being the leader that I can be, perfecting my role, whatever I make it.”

She’s back home in Georgia this month, working out in the mornings and helping out at a day care in the afternoons (giving her a taste of exactly what Staley meant when she labeled this year’s Gameco*cks a day care). She went back to Forest Park High on May 15 as they retired her No. 20 jersey and will be back in Columbia in June to start offseason conditioning.

“I’m really excited to get the team all together,” she said. “To be back with them and enjoy the company.”

She’ll work on her game as well as other duties — Feagin has to design pregame handshakes or elaborate dance moves for the incoming freshmen. And she'll work on her juggling, a skill Ashlyn Watkins taught her. That’s Feagin ably keeping three basketballs in motion during warmups.

And the questions will begin again. Will this be the year she takes that final step?

“I don’t really approach (Staley). She just lets me know that my standard is my standard and to keep it,” Feagin said. “She lets me know what I need to do. She likes to say my name. I hear my name a lot, but I listen.”

She’ll be a senior this year, one of the guiding voices in the room, and she will play. No doubt about that.

How much? Like the last three years, it remains to be seen.

But somebody has to challenge for the spot that Cardoso vacated. Somebody has to merge with Watkins and Chloe Kitts and show rookies Adhel Tac and Joyce Edwards how to play in the college/SEC paint.

“How to be a leader, how to be an all-around leader, how to communicate with my teammates in different ways,” she said, ticking off her individual goals. “Just to be there, as a person, as a player. Just to grow. Be who I am.”

Just to always be there, where she’s always been.