Fresh off of her historic WNBA MVP season, Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson is getting honored where it all began. The former South Carolina star is getting her jersey retired by the Gamecocks during this upcoming college season, the team announced Tuesday.
South Carolina will put Wilson’s No. 22 into the rafters during a ceremony on Feb. 2 — or 2/2. The currently No. 1-ranked Gamecocks will host Auburn that day.
Wilson, who was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina (where University of South Carolina is located), was a key factor in building the Gamecocks’ dynasty. She helped lead South Carolina — and longtime head coach Dawn Staley — to their first NCAA championship in 2017.
In 2018, during her senior year, Wilson swept all of the major National Player of the Year awards behind a monster season, averaging 22.6 points, 11.8 rebounds and 3.2 blocks per game. She was a National Player of the Year finalist during her sophomore and junior seasons, and was SEC First-Team and All-American for all four seasons. The Aces selected her No. 1 overall in the 2018 WNBA Draft.
Wilson still holds (aptly) 22 program records, and is the school’s all-time leading scorer with 2,389 points, per a Gamecocks news release.
In 2021, South Carolina honored Wilson with a statue outside the school’s Colonial Life Arena. The 11-foot bronze statue was unveiled on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with Wilson honoring the significance of both the statue and the day.
“Change doesn’t happen overnight,” Wilson said, “but you want to be a part of something that plants seeds so later on down the road, little Black girls can come back here and look at that statue and say, ‘Wow, she was her. But at the same time she was in her community as well.’”
Per the school, Wilson’s jersey was selected for retirement by a committee of representatives from the school’s athletics department, board of trustees and the USC Lettermen’s Association. There was a five-year waiting period that began at the end of her final season.
