South Carolina women's basketball: Ta'Niya Latson has a plan and she's sticking to it

Not many players would voluntarily cut their shot attempts in half and trade being a star for being a role player, but that’s what Ta’Niya Latson did. It was all part of a plan that she believes has worked perfectly. 

Latson played her first three seasons at Florida State, where she was an immediate star. Last year, she led the nation in scoring, averaging 25.2 points and taking 19.5 shots per game. Latson entered the transfer portal after the season. She knew exactly what she was looking for, even if others didn’t understand.

“I know my purpose,” Latson said. “I know why I came to South Carolina. At the end of the day, I didn’t come here to be a leading scorer here either. I wouldn’t have chose South Carolina if that’s what I wanted. I came here to win a championship and to be a complete player, and to prepare myself for the next level. I know a lot of people don’t understand, oh, why would you not want to take every shot? Why would you not want to be the best player? But I’ve been there, done that, had that. Now it’s about perfecting my game, perfecting my craft, shooting at an efficient rate, and getting to the lead.”

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Latson is listed at 5-8, and she knows there aren’t many 5-8 scorers in the WNBA. Everyone in the WNBA can score. Especially at her height, you have to be able to do more. 

“Obviously, I know in the league, I’m not going to be able to take every shot, and I’m not going to be able to be the leading scorer every year or whatever,” Latson said. “But that’s why I came here to South Carolina, because I just wanted to play around a complete team, and I want to become a complete player. Something I know, like, I’m going to face adversity in training camp, and it’s going to be hard. I’d rather hit that wall here than hit it in training camp and learn from my mistakes while I’m here and take it to the league.”

Latson has never had anything but praise for her time at Florida State. She has frequently and publicly thanked coach Brooke Wycoff for getting her to this point.

But Latson also knew that she needed to go somewhere else to maximize her pro potential. What Florida State needed from her to be successful and what WNBA scouts were searching for are different things.

South Carolina was the perfect match, and she committed before even visiting campus. It helped that her high school teammate and best friend is Raven Johnson. But she was also drawn to South Carolina’s reputation for preparing players for the WNBA.

“She’s learning the lessons now that she probably would have had to learn as a rookie in the W,” ESPN analyst Andraya Carter said. “She felt like, as a rookie in the W, her role probably would have been smaller, and she would have had to play defense, and she’s not going to get as many shots in the WNBA, so she has to be more efficient. And so she’s learning all of those things now at South Carolina, and being a part of a contending program. I have a lot of respect for tonight and the decision that she made. I’m sure it can’t be easy to go from such a big role – and this happens a lot, actually – I could think of rookies in the WNBA that maybe had a huge role in college, and it’s an adjustment that they have to make as soon as they get to their pro team. We see it all the time. Whether you’re first round or whether you’re second round, sometimes you don’t go in and have all the shots that you got in college. It takes a really special player to be able to do that. I have a lot of respect for what Ta’Niya has been able to do, just in terms of her efficiency, and also she’s faced some teams and some physicality and levels of intensity that she might not have seen during her time at Florida State. She’ll make a deeper run in the tournament, which is going to apply more pressure than she’s probably felt, as well, in her career, so she’s learning some of these lessons early and hopefully putting herself in a good spot to be a well-rounded option for a multitude of WNBA teams when the draft comes.

10 different Gamecocks appeared in a WNBA game last season, the third most of any college program, and South Carolina has produced the most draft picks of any program over the last five years.

But as easy as the initial decision was, the path had bumpy moments.

“Ta’Niya could’ve gone anywhere else in the country for a lot more NIL money, a lot more. A lot more, right? She chose to come spend her last year with us, like, forever indebted to her for that,” Dawn Staley said. “But I think when we recruit them, we give them the absolute truth. And I know that all the things they have been through, the confidence going up and down, just fluctuating, you know, sometimes you second-guess whether or not you made the right decision, but seeing that through and knowing that you hurdled that moment and you trust us to get you through those moments.”

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Latson admitted that she was still trying to learn her role early in the season, saying she had to remember to give herself grace. She has also dealt with nagging knee and ankle injuries throughout the year. 

The struggle was worth it. Despite openly saying there were struggles early in the season, Latson has mostly forgotten about them 

“I guess it just eventually came, she said during the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament. “I just had to play through everything. That was something that, you know, the adversity that I had went through when I first came here, just playing through, trying to get comfortable, was one of the main things that I was focused on during the year. I probably would say around SEC time, that’s when I was starting to get comfortable with the system and my role on the team.”

Latson’s decision to transfer has often been criticized on social media. Florida State fans pore over every comment she makes to see if it puts the Seminoles in a bad light. Online “experts” see that Latson’s scoring average dropped over 10 points to a career-low 14.3 points, and aggressively try to tell her what a mistake she made. 

“Playing for our team is hard because, you know, people are watching. People are watching for various reasons,” Staley said. “Some people want to elevate us. Some people want to see our downfall. Some people just want to nitpick at players on our team for whatever reason they choose to come here. I know Ta’Niya hears we don’t develop guards, right? I’m sure she hears that. I’m sure she shouldn’t have gone there, that’s the worst decision that she could have made, for whatever reason.”

Latson laughed when asked how she blocks out noise, whether it is criticism or unsolicited “advice.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “Like, at the end of the day, it’s hard for me to care about what they’re saying because I don’t believe it. I don’t care. I mean, they can criticize me. They criticize everybody. They criticize the greats. I mean, that’s what social media is for. I can’t take those things personal because at the end of the day, I’ve got to focus on why I came here and my purpose, and I would 100% do it all over again.”

It helps that she will be playing in the Sweet 16 for the first time in her career. Latson doesn’t show a lot of emotion. Except when it comes to winning.

“It feels amazing,” she said. “I was just telling Coach, I ain’t never been here before, so I’m excited. I can’t wait to play Oklahoma for the second time. I feel like it’d be a good game for us, but I’m just blessed to be here.”

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