Joyce Edwards knew what she was signing up for when she came to South Carolina. The standard is high, the expectations are championship level and the fanbase is among the best in the nation. While many players from around the country come to Columbia to play for head coach Dawn Staley, it means something a little more to those who grew up in the state.
Even though she moved to South Carolina at nine years old, Edwards learned pretty quickly how deeply Gamecock women’s basketball resonated with the community all over the state.
“That’s when A’ja [Wilson] was blowing through there and that’s all I know about South Carolina,” she says. “[It] was basketball.”
Now, over a decade after she first arrived in Camden, Edwards now picks up the torch of local talents who carry the hopes of Gamecock nation on their shoulders.
And she’s ready to hold it high.
Interestingly enough, Joyce Edwards started out as a soccer player but still dabbled in a bit of everything. Unlike some players of the new era, who have increasingly specialized in one specific sport from a young age, Joyce was encouraged by her family to play something different every season. In a house with two brothers, one older and one younger, she found her competitive edge early.
“They used to play like basketball too,” she remembers. “So I just wanted to be like, especially my older brother, to be like him all the time. So they kind of inspired me to start hooping. I feel like my seventh grade year, I took basketball more seriously, and yeah, just locked in.”
As her star began to ascend, Edwards became exposed to the world of women’s basketball writ large. With South Carolina firmly established as a hotbed for high school hoops and one of the epicenters of women’s college basketball, it was easy for big programs to take notice. At the Chick Fil-A Classic in Columbia, Joyce played with and against some of the best players in the nation.
“It was the first time they held a girls game in the Chick fil A classic, which was nice,” says Edwards. “So that was kind of an honor, but it was just great talent. I feel like it just kind of it created opportunities for women’s basketball and general, like I said, with the Chick fil A classic.”
But it wasn’t just basketball that was of interest to her. Edwards has always been something of an academic, excelling in class while working in particularly specialized fields. When part of her recruitment came down to South Carolina and Clemson, many wondered what (outside of it being close to home) the Tigers had that could match the juggernaut Dawn Staley had built in Columbia. It turned out that Clemson’s prestigious engineering program was a factor in them making it as far as they did in the race for one of the top players in the country.
So Coach Staley worked her magic.
“She just found, like, a program within an Honors College where you could, technically, like, create your own major,” says Joyce. “You literally can create your own major and kind of tailor your degree to exactly what you.
Edwards got on to campus and started working towards an environmental science degree with a minor in environmental engineering and sustainability. But that’s not all. She’s also on a pre-law track.
While she studies the relationship between humans and the planet, there have also been lessons in how Joyce handles her own environment. Like many players that have joined the Gamecocks program, Edwards had to earn her minutes on the floor. She played as a rotational big early on in the season but was thrust into a larger role when Ashlyn Watkins went down with a season ending knee injury.
Her minutes didn’t increase too much on average but there would be games where she would be called upon to do much more. In a February win over Florida, she set a career high with 28 points and was a key cog in South Carolina’s SEC Tournament semifinal win over Oklahoma.
A dream run to the NCAA title game ended as UConn dominated the Gamecocks on both ends. The entire year was a learning experience for Edwards, but one she thinks was good for her development as a player.
“In the beginning, obviously [I was] playing, but just learning, I was a little bit uncomfortable,” explains Edwards. “Kind of didn’t know what to expect. Then in the middle of the season, I had this huge stretch of doing well. Scoring, rebounding, everything efficient. And then you had the adjustment of teams scouting for you and that I had a little bit of a rocky couple of games in the NCAA tournament.”
“But that whole process, I feel like, just made me realize what my sophomore year is going to be like and what I need to do for my sophomore year,” she continues. “It’s just helping me prepare for this year. I feel like that journey of going my through ups and downs just, was just beautiful. Even though the failures kind of hurt in the moment, when I look back, I needed those.”
It helps that she’ll also be returning as a seasoned veteran of the international game. Edwards spent the summer in Chile with Team USA at the FIBA Americup. While not the highest caliber of international competition, the Americup is usually one of the first senior level call ups for college players.
“I had to wrap my head around that in the beginning,” she says. “[It] was kind of crazy that I made a national team for Team USA. I feel like we were a little bit of the underdogs for once. Because my whole USA experience, we’ve never been the underdogs. USA was always expected to win. But Brazil had WNBA players. They had way more and they had older players, more experienced players, and I feel like we came down, we end up winning in that whole tournament. It was just crazy.”
The standard at South Carolina is different. It may be unfair to expect the Gamecocks to be title winners every year but that’s a testament to the caliber of program Dawn Staley has built in Columbia. Championship is the standard. Some programs or coaches say it. Others exist in that state at all times. In women’s college basketball, there’s only two places that can comfortably make that claim right now.
Edwards knows that the eyes of the state will be on her, as one of Camden’s finest and a representative of far more than just the University. But pressure doesn’t affect her too much, she says. Instead, the goal this year isn’t to block out the noise off the court. It’s to slow the world down on it.
Once that happens, the Gamecocks will know exactly what they have in Joyce Edwards: another potential great in garnet and black, carrying the palmetto flag proudly.
“That stretch [when] I was doing good, I was just playing,” Edwards says of last season, “When I started going downhill, I was overthinking a lot because I was expecting double teams. I was expecting this [or that] instead of letting my eyes do the work. And I feel like, when we played Texas in the Final Four, I finally let my eyes do the work. So just playing relaxed, playing free, and trusting my basketball instincts, and I feel like that’s going to result in greatness.”
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