Local star Joyce Edwards talks ‘full circle’ transition to USC women’s basketball

When Joyce Edwards was in middle school, she mopped the floors of Colonial Life Arena after South Carolina home games.

The tradeoff: Free admission to watch the A’ja Wilson-led Gamecocks play basketball.

Edwards felt shy and embarrassed about the proposition (two familiar emotions for any tween-aged girl). But her mother, Rasheedah, made her go. So Edwards begrudgingly did as her mother wished — and managed to snag a picture with Wilson after one of the games.

“I was so happy, so starstruck,” she said Tuesday.

Several years later Edwards would attend South Carolina’s 2023-24 home opener versus Maryland as the No. 2 recruit in her class and talk to Wilson, now a WNBA champion and MVP, about potentially following in her footsteps. Staying home to play for coach Dawn Staley and becoming a star.

She announced her commitment to USC three days later.

“Definitely full circle. ... She (Wilson) knows what it is to get through everything that I want to get through,” Edwards said during a media availability for the reigning national champion Gamecocks’ three scholarship newcomers. “She’s what I aspire to be. Little Joyce was like, ‘Wow, this is crazy.’ But older me, I’m trying to learn from her, get some wisdom.”

Now, Edwards is on campus as the most highly touted recruit of USC’s freshman class. She’s come a long way from “little Joyce,” though she’s only 30 minutes from where she grew up in Camden. And she’s eager to see where her first year as a Gamecock can take her.

Basketball has already taken Edwards all over the world, most recently to Colombia with Team USA’s U18 squad to compete in the FIBA AmeriCup. She averaged 14.2 points on 54.5% shooting, 7.2 rebounds and two steals in six games, leading the United States to its 11th straight gold medal and winning tournament MVP in the process.

Edwards was also invited to the ESPY Awards in Hollywood earlier this month. While South Carolina was nominated for (and won) Best Team after its undefeated national championship season, Edwards was in contention for the 2023-24 Gatorade Best Female Player of the Year. She did not win but was named the organization’s girls basketball player of the year in March.

Those trips were fun, but they complicated her transition to college.

“Sometimes, I kind of feel like it made me a step behind,” Edwards said.

The pace at AmeriCup was fast, but felt similar to high school, she added, comparing her U18 experience this summer to her U19 experience with now-teammate Chloe Kitts in 2023. In college, there are new levels to everything. Speed, physicality and strength. Edwards wasn’t able to spend as much time in the weight room when abroad as her teammates did stateside.

But she’s back in the gym now and pushing herself in strength coach Molly Binetti’s signature “Final Four Friday” workouts.

Well, pushing herself and sometimes being pushed.

USC’s X (formerly known as Twitter) account posted video footage from last Friday’s workout on the beach volleyball court. Edwards and teammate Ashlyn Watkins were shown competing in a sort of bear crawl competition. They started off shoulder to shoulder, trying to overpower and move the other out of bounds beyond some small orange cones.

After a few seconds, Watkins picked her hands off the ground and tackled Edwards to the sand, receiving laughs and applause from their teammates.

Edwards rolled her eyes as mention of the clip.

”She cheated, y’all,” Edwards said with a wry, competitive smile. “She cheated.”

Those two South Carolina natives have trained together for years under Josh Holmes. They bring out the fire in each other, and Edwards said looks forward to more heated competitions with her fellow forward in the future.

When she’s not playing basketball or buried in honors college homework (she had a 5.1 GPA at Camden and has customized her academic path so she can study environmental engineering), Edwards likes to spend time with her family and watch movies. Her top five Disney films, which she likes to queue up and fall asleep to: “Princess and the Frog,” “Tangled,” “Brave,” “Moana” and “Inside Out.”

Edwards, of course, is an excellent basketball player: AmeriCup MVP, McDonald’s All-American MVP, Nike Hoop Summit MVP, the Jordan Brand Classic MVP and 2023-24 Gatorade Player of the Year. But “little Joyce” is still in there, living out her dream, following Wilson’s blueprint.

As much as Edwards looks to Wilson as a model of success, it’s clear she’s striving to leave her own unique mark on the sport. And that starts with choosing No. 8 as her jersey number. “A fresh start,” she said, having to move on from the No. 12 she wore in high school. Guard MiLaysia Fulwiley already had dibs.

Edwards is the first player to ever wear a digit greater than five in South Carolina women’s basketball history, and she’s determined to make it an “iconic” number.

Of course, the late Kobe Bryant is No. 8. And Edwards knows that. But “for women’s basketball,” Edwards said, she’ll make it hers.