Basketball
The Sky is the Limit: MiLaysia Fulwiley
MiLaysia Fulwiley may be flashy on the hardwood, but this generational talent is no flash in the pan.
The South Carolina Gamecocks clung to a one- point lead over defending national champion Louisiana State in a huge game this past March. En route to this Southeastern Conference (SEC) Tournament title game, the Gamecocks had defeated every opponent they faced during the 2023-24 NCAA regular season, while the national media spotlight on women’s college basketball shone elsewhere. LSU’s Lady Tigers, for their part, had spent the season battling opposing teams as well as uncomfortable attacks from sports media and fans.
Both teams craved the validation an SEC title would provide, and emotions flared. With a little more than two minutes left in the fourth quarter, MiLaysia Fulwiley stole the ball from LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson on the dribble and dashed toward halfcourt. But at the edge of the SEC logo, Johnson committed an intentional foul to thwart her path to a fast-break layup on the other end.
Fulwiley did not slow easily. At center court, Johnson tagged her harder, nearly causing the freshman standout to stumble. But with strength she attributes to the help of Gamecocks sports performance coach Molly Binetti, Fulwiley stayed on her feet, protected the ball and decelerated toward the sideline, where she was greeted by the South Carolina bench and coaching staff on their feet.
Fulwiley lets her game do the talking.
© Koury Angelo
Fulwiley was the first SC freshman to win the SEC Tournament MVP trophy.
© Koury Angelo
Meanwhile, as her teammates moved in on the player who had bodied their young guard, words—and shoves—were exchanged. Johnson was knocked to the floor by Kamilla Cardoso, the Gamecocks’ star center and eventual No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft. Cardoso was ejected, along with three other Gamecocks and two LSU players who left the bench in the melee. But the LSU player who had shoved Fulwiley to begin the fracas remained in the game.
Someone had to step up. To avenge what felt like an unfair ruling by the game officials, Fulwiley let her game do the talking and snagged another steal off of LSU’s Johnson. She kept her focus on nailing down the win. Her teammates who were tossed from the game for defending her would not get to celebrate on the court, but they did become SEC champions after a 79-72 win.
In 16:40 of time on the floor, Fulwiley poured in 24 points, dished two assists and recorded two steals. Her offensive haul included four-of-four free throws, four-of-five shooting from 3-point range and a 66.7 percent field goal percentage. After putting on a master class in efficiency, the teenager was rewarded with the SEC Tournament MVP trophy.
Fulwiley was the first freshman in South Carolina women’s basketball history to take home that hardware. It was a glorious moment for a young athlete whose athletic journey began at a neighborhood park in Columbia, South Carolina, across town from the Gamecocks’ Colonial Life Arena home court. But it was a moment that had been in the making for years.
Fulwiley put on an offensive show during the SEC championship game in '24.
© Getty Images
“It started really by just hooping at the park,” Fulwiley says. Fueled by the satisfaction of seeing the ball swish through the net, her hobby morphed into a full-blown obsession. Ignited by a sense of creativity and wonder, she devised ever more clever ways to drop the ball into the net.
Women’s basketball aficionados now draw comparisons between Fulwiley’s electrifying moves and the tricky dishes of Dawn Staley, a 2013 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, pioneer of the WNBA (and the American Basketball League, the bygone women’s pro league) and now head coach of the South Carolina women’s team. But Fulwiley was too young to have witnessed Staley—the OG of swaggy floor generals—dish no-look, behind-the-back passes at the 1996 Olympics, lead the ABL’s Philadelphia Rage or ball out for the WNBA’s defunct Charlotte Sting. During Fulwiley’s formative years, the games in the fledgling WNBA aired infrequently on TV.
So, like many tweens and teens, Fulwiley turned to YouTube. She consumed compilations of basketball skill-building and trick shots. Many of the athletes she watched were unknown—kids performing crazy stunts with aspirations of going viral. These videos helped Fulwiley develop sequences and moves from one end of the court to the other. At 12, her virtuosic talent began opening doors. First, Fulwiley made the leap up to the varsity girls’ basketball team at nearby Keenan High School. Before long, after Staley began to take notice of the phenom, South Carolina offered her a full scholarship to play for the Gamecocks.
Because she started playing in middle school, she was able to lead Keenan to four state titles in her six seasons with the Raiders and fielded many more college offers. In her senior year of high school, Fulwiley narrowed her list to five programs in the southeastern United States, most in the SEC.
Her announcement to commit to South Carolina came as no surprise. “I wanted to be a part of greatness,” Fulwiley says during an interview with The Red Bulletin this past May. For the occasion, the 5’10” guard—who signed pioneering NCAA name, image and likeness (NIL) deals with Red Bull, Under Armour, Curry Brand and a restaurant chain called Mr. Seafood—wears a dark jacket, her dreadlocks concealing some of the collar, with weighty gold jewelry around her neck and wrists. “I’m from there and it made more sense to go there,” she adds. “South Carolina is the No. 1 team in the country and I live here. It just wouldn’t make any sense to go to another school.”
![”I put a lot of work in to my body to be able to finish [my] moves."](https://img.redbull.com/images/c_crop,x_0,y_0,h_4000,w_2400/c_fill,w_100,h_150/q_20,f_webp,e_vectorize:30/redbullcom/2024/10/28/x6l5zuww4bxps94jrso5/milaysia-fulwiley-basketball-fitness "”I put a lot of work in to my body to be able to finish [my] moves.\"")
”I put a lot of work in to my body to be able to finish [my] moves."
© Koury Angelo
Fulwiley, who was photographed for The Red Bulletin on May 6 in California.
© Koury Angelo
Staley was a mutual admirer. After the coach witnessed Fulwiley’s advancement through middle and high school, she was convinced that Fulwiley was a generational talent, possessing rare natural ability and physical traits that enable excellence. Like ballerina Misty Copeland—whose first ballet class at age 13 was on a basketball court at a Boys & Girls Club—Staley and Fulwiley possess a unique mix of athleticism and artistry. “There aren’t very many females or males able to do what she does,” Staley told the Greenville News. “She just has a really good knack for the game. It comes to her quite naturally, and we’re so happy that she’s a Gamecock, and she can give us some of those exciting moments.”
Fulwiley’s gifts were on full display as her high school career wound down. In a 2023 game versus the Eau Claire Shamrocks, for instance, she did not just dunk; she took the ball to the rim with uncommon finesse. When a fast-break run left her alone in the open court, Fulwiley approached the basket, slammed the ball onto the hardwood with the exact force needed for it to bounce to the height of the rim, elevated and tapped it through the hoop.
It was not just a basketball play; it was an elite performance of timing and improvisation. It was Copeland’s hands elaborating the story; clarinetist Doreen Ketchens taking the scenic route to the end of “When the Saints Go Marching In”; Simone Biles, shins down on the mat, rolling her toes into a standing position. But like all prodigies, Fulwiley needed to hone her talents. She carried the scoring load in high school; the court was a canvas on which she could experiment at will. In the far more competitive NCAA, she had to mature into knowing when it was time to go wild.
“I don’t just wake up and do those moves. I put a lot of work."
© Koury Angelo
In her first collegiate game, last November, Fulwiley put on a show. South Carolina and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish became the first women’s teams in NCAA history to compete in Paris. The thousands of Parisians who filled Georges Carpentier Arena and a far larger audience that tuned into the broadcast on ESPN saw Fulwiley’s catlike sneak attack, as she poked the ball from her opponent’s hand. With lightning-quick speed, she advanced up the court, alternating dribbles between left hand and right.
Defenders closed in as Fulwiley powered into the paint. She had come too far to let Notre Dame’s defense even think about blocking her shot. Fulwiley passed the ball to herself in a behind-the-back showstopper. The move confused those defending her. Fulwiley was free to complete a perfect layup on the move.
The entire brilliant play lasted five seconds. In that moment, watching on television, I said aloud: “That is the Full Fulwiley.” So in our interview, I ask the rising sophomore if she knows which play of hers I had nicknamed. “It’s probably a layup,” Fulwiley laughs. “Was it a layup?”
Any of her speedy floaters could be a Fulwiley, but the Full Fulwiley starts with a steal or a rebound and ends with fast-break points scored via a slick move below the rim.
Basketball legends took notice. “I just saw the best move in all of basketball, including the pros like LeBron [James], Steph [Curry], KD [Kevin Durant], Victor [Wembanyama] and [Nikola] Jokic,” Magic Johson, the five-time NBA champion and Hall of Famer, renowned for his creativity on the court, wrote on Twitter. “Everyone must see the coast-to- coast, behind-the-back move . . . WOW!!”
Durant, meanwhile, tweeted that Fulwiley and Hannah Hidalgo of Notre Dame, also a freshman guard, were “moving DIFFERENT.” It was high praise coming from such basketball legends. The attention made Fulwiley an overnight sensation.
But despite her fast collegiate start, obstacles remained. During a game against North Carolina at the end of November, Staley benched Fulwiley. Staley later told a reporter that she thought the experience would “pay dividends” for her young star to watch and learn. The Gamecocks got a 65-58 win; Fulwiley got a dose of humility. “If you play well, you get extended minutes. If you don’t, that has to go to somebody else,” Staley said.
It was a wake-up call that Fulwiley heard loud and clear. She recommitted to checking her ego at the door—and playing defense. “I wanna be on the court, so I just decided to do whatever I had to do to stay on the court, which was defend at a high level,” she says. “I knew I was capable of it. I kind of chilled on defense [before].”
She also began navigating outsiders’ expectations. “A lot of fans expect me to do crazy things, even if I’m only playing four minutes a quarter,” she says. “It could be overwhelming if I’m not making every shot, so I just tried to grow and stay locked in mentally.”
To stay in a balanced mindset, she has used some creative means. Sometimes she literally lets her hair down to “put some superpowers in me or something,” such as in the early rounds of the NCAA tournament. With each win, the Gamecocks moved closer to the national spotlight, but Fulwiley was distracted.
“I was thinking too much about everything, and everybody wanted me to play so good,” she says. “I just wanted to feel like my old high school self.” But she and the Gamecocks had a national title to win. Letting her hair down did not refresh her mindset; Fulwiley returned to a pulled-back style for the rest of the season, as South Carolina played their way deeper into the tournament.
“My game is gifted and I just keep putting in the work,” says Fulwiley.
© Koury Angelo
The only undefeated team in the 2023-24 NCAA season, men’s or women’s, made it to the championship game. To take home the title, the Gamecocks would have to go through Caitlin Clark— owner of every scoring record in NCAA history (men’s and women’s) and major media darling—and the Iowa Hawkeyes. The battle between the NCAA’s most prolific scorer and an unbeaten team unfolded in front of 18,300 spectators at a sold-out Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland. An average of 18.7 million households tuned in, the biggest TV audience for any basketball game—men’s, women’s, professional or collegiate—in years.
Despite the public fascination with Clark, the best team won. Diana Taurasi, the 2004 WNBA No. 1 draft pick and leading scorer in the league’s history, said during a Final Four program that the Gamecocks were pro-ready. “Now they look like a WNBA team to me,” she said, suggesting that basketball IQ, patience and prioritizing team goals over personal glory are keys to success.
Only Fulwiley and her teammates know what they overcame individually and collectively to reach the pinnacle of college basketball. For starters, these young women are students as well as athletes. Fulwiley is pursuing a bachelor of science in retailing and admits that her course load has at times felt overwhelming. To ensure her standing with the university and her team, she became “very vocal” about any difficulties—usually contacting assistant coach Jolette Law for support and connection to an academic coach.
Then there are the rigors of being a top Division I athlete. “I don’t just wake up and do those moves,” Fulwiley says. “I put a lot of work into my body to be able to finish the moves. When I steal the ball like that, go down the court and make those layups, it makes me feel like all my hard work is paying off. We put a lot of work in every day— not just on the court, but also with Molly [Binetti], making sure my legs are strong, my arms are strong.” The Full Fulwiley isn’t just the fancy defense-to-offense conversion that leaves viewers agape; it is also the behind- the-scenes labor.
“The Full Fulwiley is definitely a great nickname for that,” she laughs.
Part of Fulwiley’s work is keeping like- minded, goal-oriented people around her. “You have to be disciplined enough to understand what’s for you and what isn’t for you—who is for you, who isn’t for you,” she says. “I do what I’m supposed to do off the court . . . because you can easily get off track or people can try to make you [go] off track.”
With resources matching her sizable talent, the pressure to succeed has increased. Basketball “became something that I need in life, and it can help me make a better life for my family—my mom and two sisters and just for myself in general,” Fulwiley says. “My game is gifted and I just keep putting in the work. I think I’m very different, and that part of me is never gonna change.”
JaMeesia Ford, a track-and-field athlete at South Carolina, has been a grounding force in Fulwiley’s life. When I mention Ford, the sharpshooter glances at the floor, fidgeting. At the year-ending Gamecock Gala, Fulwiley wore a dark Hermès suit and red bow tie, while Ford was at her side in a long black flapper-style dress. Fulwiley confirms Ford is her girlfriend; it is fitting that the pair left the gala with co-Female Freshman of the Year awards in hand.
Given Fulwiley’s roadrunner-like speed, I was curious to know if she could beat Ford in a footrace. Fulwiley smiles at the question. “I raced her a couple times in the halls and I realized that I couldn’t easily be a track star,” Fulwiley says. “She’s really fast, so I don’t expect to beat her. She, like, beat me really bad.”
Footraces in hallways are grounding fun. Basketball is also joyous for Fulwiley, and she wants to keep it that way. The bigger picture of helping South Carolina to its third national title in seven seasons, though, is not lost on the spry and crafty star.
“What we’re doing [helps] women’s basketball—all our supporters, especially all the little kids out there watching,” she says. “Our fans and our fams.”
