Dawn Staley updates status of Sahnya Jah for remainder of the season

The South Carolina women’s basketball squad will be down a key rotational forward for the time being, as the team announced prior to the game that Sahnya Jah was suspended indefinitely. After the game, head coach Dawn Staley shared a brief update on Jah.

Overall, Staley was generally mum about Jah’s status, calling her “day-to-day” going forward. With a handful of games left in the regular season, it’s reasonably possible Jah doesn’t play again until the postseason.

“It’ll be day-by-day,” Staley said. “She’ll work toward getting a little bit closer to coming back, but it’ll be day-to-day.”

The Gamecocks will also be without Jah at a time the front court is thin for other reasons. Starting center Kamilla Cardoso is currently away from the South Carolina team and playing for the Brazilian national team in Olympic qualifiers.

The 6-foot-7 senior averages 13.8 points and 9.8 rebounds per game while shooting 59.5% from the field. Ahead of South Carolina’s matchup against Mizzou, Staley revealed how Cardoso’s absence will affect the team.

“Everybody just has to do what they do best, like do what you’ve been doing,” Staley said. “We don’t have anybody that’s 6-7. You know, that’s almost averaging a double-double. We don’t, we don’t have anybody. We have different [players] though and being different and being versatile, we have to lean in on that and not try to reproduce what we’re missing.

“We can make up for scoring. We really can make up for scoring. We can’t make up for the defensive presence that Kamilla brings just from her stature. We can however play, you know the the other side of it, the rotations and we could switch probably a little bit more than we normally do.”

Jah has only appeared in 16 games this season, the fewest of any player on the roster. Jah averages 3.1 points and 2.0 rebounds in 9.1 minutes in those appearances. She has appeared in six of South Carolina’s nine SEC games. Jah was given a “week off” from practice in the preseason.

For now, Staley is focused on keeping her team’s focus on the task at hand.

“I don’t care about other people’s expectations of our team,” Staley said earlier this season. “I don’t care about other people’s views of our team. We had the best team in the nation last year, so yeah, they had to talk about us.