Kamilla Cardoso to miss the next two South Carolina women’s basketball games. Here’s why
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No. 1 South Carolina will be without its leading scorer and rebounder in its next two games, including one against No. 11 UConn.
Starting center Kamilla Cardoso will be in Belém, Brazil, for one of four 2024 FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, Brazil Basketball and Dawn Staley announced. Cardoso will leave Sunday night and return next week, Staley said.
The senior center will play a role in Brazil Basketball’s quest to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The qualifying tournament is scheduled for Feb. 8-11, which overlaps with South Carolina’s games against Missouri (Feb. 8) and UConn (Feb. 11).
Cardoso played with Brazil over the summer in the 2023 FIBA AmeriCup, where she helped guide her team to a gold medal over Team USA and earned the Tournament MVP honors. She averaged 10.9 points on a 58.5% clip and 8.3 rebounds in 20.3 minutes per contest. Cardoso also blocked eight shots in the seven-game event.
This season at South Carolina, Cardoso leads the Gamecocks in scoring (13.8 points per game) and rebounding (9.8 per game). She averages 25 minutes per contest, fourth-most of USC’s starters. Cardoso (alongside teammate Te-Hina Paopao) also made the Wooden Award Late Season Top 20 — a watch list for the prestigious John R. Wooden Award for Player of the Year.
“She’s a focal point,” South Carolina coach Staley said ahead of USC’s road game against Auburn last week. “I do think she’s a difference maker between us winning a championship or not.”
Team USA, having won the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup, and Team France, as the host of the 2024 Games, have already qualified for the Olympics. Ten spots remain. Those spots will be allocated to the top three teams in the Brazil and Hungary brackets. In the two brackets with France (China bracket) and the United States (Belgium bracket), the top two teams will qualify.
Brazil’s bracket includes Australia, Serbia and Germany. Brazil will play Australia at 8 p.m. local time on Feb. 8, Serbia at 8 p.m. on Feb. 10 and Germany at 8 p.m. on Feb. 11. The games will be broadcast live on ESPN.
