The NCAA has denied South Carolina’s season-of-competition waiver for Madina Okot, confirming that the center has exhausted her collegiate eligibility. The decision closes the door on any further NCAA play for Okot after a brief but highly productive run in Columbia.
Staley said Okot made the team and the sport better. She added that early in her basketball career, Okot made courageous choices not only to pursue the game, but also to improve her life, and said the Gamecocks were grateful to be part of her story.
Okot’s final season gave South Carolina exactly what it needed. She ranked third in the country with 22 double-doubles, averaged 10.6 rebounds and shot.575 from the field. She was named to the All-SEC Second Team and was the Gamecocks’ top rebounder in 29 of her 39 games played.
Those numbers put her among the most efficient frontcourt players in the nation and among the best rebounders in South Carolina history. She finished second in the program’s single-season record books with 149 offensive rebounds, third with 412 total rebounds and third with 263 defensive rebounds. Her 22 double-doubles were the fifth-most in a season in program history.
The ruling arrives after South Carolina finished 36-4, won its fifth straight SEC regular-season championship and advanced to the NCAA Final Four for the sixth time in as many seasons and the seventh time under Staley. That makes the loss of Okot especially sharp, because the Gamecocks are now left without one of the players who helped anchor that run.
Okot played only two seasons in the NCAA, but in that short span she became one of the top centers in the country. South Carolina has described her as a senior in the context of her place in the program, and her final line leaves no doubt about why the waiver denial matters: the Gamecocks are losing a player who changed the paint, the glass and the pace of their season.
What comes next is simple. Okot’s college career is over, and South Carolina will move forward without its leading rebounder from a season that ended in the Final Four.
