South Carolina women’s basketball has submitted a waiver to let transfer guard Te’a Cooper become immediately eligible, coach Dawn Staley said Tuesday.
Cooper, who came to USC from Tennessee, this offseason, would normally be required to sit out a season as a transfer, as fellow Gamecock Alexis Jennings did when she left Kentucky. But Staley and South Carolina are arguing that because Cooper was sidelined with a knee injury last year, forcing her to sit out a season will cost her an extra year of eligibility.
“She’ll only have one year to play,” Staley said Tuesday. “And hopefully they’ll see that, and hopefully we’ll see that we got a player down and another one’s kind of limping her way back, and I hope (the NCAA) will just consider all of it, because I think they’ve probably considered all that in some other cases.