How a semester with South Carolina, Dawn Staley helped Chloe Kitts thrive at FIBA U19 World Cup
COLUMBIA — Sophomore Chloe Kitts is coming back to summer practices with South Carolina women's basketball as a gold medalist.
Kitts spent the past two weeks in Madrid, Spain, competing for Team USA at the FIBA U19 World Cup. En route to the gold medal, she averaged 10.7 points and led the team in rebounding with eight per game. She also averaged 1.6 assists and finished with the second-best efficiency rating behind only Joyce Edwards, a 5-star prospect in the Class of 2024.
It was a significant improvement from Kitts' last outing with Team USA in the 2022 FIBA U18 Women's Americas Championship, where she averaged 7.7 points and 5.8 rebounds.
Before the World Cup, it had been several months since Kitts' father Jason watched his daughter play a full game of basketball. She originally signed in South Carolina's 2023 recruiting class but skipped her final high school season to enroll a semester early. She averaged 6.8 minutes appearing in 18 games for the Gamecocks in 2022-23.
Kitts' newfound success on the international stage showed Jason just how much that brief season at South Carolina helped her development.
"I feel if she's not at South Carolina in December going through that type of routine and learning from those leaders and understanding the expectations and standards that this level has, she doesn't make (Team USA)," Jason said. "Coach (Dawn) Staley has had a plan all along and we trusted in her, and she's doing remarkable things with Chloe."
In the championship against Spain, Kitts scored Team USA's first points and recorded a near double-double with 15 points and nine rebounds. The USA won its fourth consecutive gold medal in the event in front of roughly 10,000 fans in Madrid — most of whom were cheering for the silver medalists.
"I think the big thing was just being able to to gain the confidence, especially playing in front of that environment with that type of pressure," Jason said. "She came out ready. She scored early, she scored often, she didn't hesitate. For me, you can just see her mindset shifting like 'OK, I can do this.' "
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Jason said the biggest change he saw in Kitts physically was her strength, and he credited Gamecocks sports performance coach Molly Binetti with helping her add approximately 15 pounds of muscle mass since she joined the team in late December.
"She's attacking the basket, she's getting fouled and getting to the free throw line, she's not shying away from contact like she used to," Jason said. "She's just a different player. She's a much more physical player and can stand her ground opposed to a year ago where she was just so lean and wasn't comfortable in her game at the international level."
It wasn't an easy freshman season for Kitts, who had to adjust to college basketball in the middle of the season on one of the most talented rosters the sport had seen in years. Jason said the gold medal was uniquely meaningful for Kitts because it was a sign of all the challenges paying off.
"With the confidence you could see in her in her, just her smile and the way she was having fun, you could just tell that the struggle that she's been through the last six months was really the process that she needed to go through for her development," Jason said. "It was definitely a fun moment for our family."
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: How South Carolina, Dawn Staley elevated Chloe Kitts at FIBA World Cup
