How has MiLaysia Fulwiley achieved her dreams? How is Fulwiley inspiring her hometown of Columbia?

There are few players who possess as much of an ability to impact a game as South Carolina’s MiLaysia Fulwiley. The sophomore guard from Columbia continues to grow into one of the nation’s must-watch players.

She plays with flash and fire, which is easy to like. Fulwiley is averaging 11.9 points per game and leads the team in steals averaging 1.6 this season. She was named the SEC Sixth Woman of the Year for 2025, and anything she does in-game can end up on a highlight reel.

Dawn Staley struck gold when she went mining in her backyard. Fulwiley is as-advertised and more than that for the Gamecocks as her second season in the Garnet and Black winds to a close as her team enters the Final Four on Friday night against Texas.

“I think this year she looks more seasoned,” Staley said. “She is a much better practice player than she ever was last year. She is a lot more locked into what needs to be done, just the nuances of what needs to be done, and how she needs to improve. She’s done that.”

Few on the staff are closer with Fulwiley than South Carolina assistant coach Kadijah Sessions, a Myrtle Beach native and one of the most decorated basketball players from the state of South Carolina. She returned home after a stint in professional basketball to join Staley’s staff in 2024.

“She’s a player that we’ve really never seen before that came through South Carolina as a female,” Sessions said. “Everybody in South Carolina loves her, and they praise her, and I love that for her, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re from a place. You have to support a player such as MiLaysia.”

Fulwiley was a massive reason that South Carolina advanced to their fifth straight Elite Eight. She scored 23 points against Maryland, 11 in the fourth quarter to propel the Gamecocks to victory.

“Lay just wants to win,” Staley said. “This is probably the time that she locks in a little bit more than others because it’s win or go home.”

She showed the growth in her maturity as a player against Maryland by handling tough coaching and responding in the final minutes of the game. She scored six points to close out the win as Staley put her back in with two and half minutes left.

“There was an instance in this game where I got in her. I got in her big-time. Two months ago she wouldn’t be able to recover from it,” Staley said. “Shut down, we probably would have lost the game because she was the only one that could really manufacture our shots and make baskets. But she just wants to win. I think in those moments is when I feel like I can coach her the most, where she’ll listen the most.”

It is at the top of her game where growth occurs the most. When the lights are the brightest, Fulwiley seems to be evermore in her element. Ability and talent have never been part of the question with Fulwiley. It has been her growth in other aspects of basketball that makes her continue to stand out among the rest.

“I think just overall preparation, overall just being more willing to listen and grow,” Staley said. “I think that’s her biggest growth, is listening, growing, trying to figure it out, and not to be perfect. It’s not to do it right once or twice. It is her wanting to do that, her thirst for wanting to do that is where her biggest growth has taken place.”

It all started on the many rec league courts in Columbia. Fulwiley would play up grades which taught her so many lessons about the game. She would lose a lot when she played people older than her, but the lessons she learned from them has carried and shaped her into the assassin she is today.

“I was in sixth grade playing 12th graders, so I lost by a lot most of the time,” Fulwiley said. “It kind of mentally prepared me for coming here. Like that UConn game. Yeah, I was upset, but I think I’ve been there before when I was a kid, so I kind of just took it on the chin, and I think it really just made me grow into the player that I am now.”

LaRonda Quattlebaum, who grew up with Fulwiley in Columbia from the start, is one of many hoopers to move onto a higher level of basketball. Quattlebaum is a redshirt sophomore guard at Jacksonville after graduating from A.C. Flora High School in Columbia.

“I’ve watched her grow and grow as a better person and basketball player from when were young,” Quattlebaum said. “I enjoy watching her play, and it gets me really hyped to see her fulfilling her dreams that we always talked about as kids. Watching her grow into the incredible player and person that she is today at South Carolina has been amazing. From childhood to now, her hard work and passion have never changed and only grown stronger.”

The pair would go to the park as kids in search of competition, oftentimes being the boys way older than them. Playing older players at such a young age has forged Fulwiley’s game, making her tough and eager for another challenge.

“Playing against older people it can be competitive, it can be tough, but I think I kind of welcome in all the pressure, welcome in all of the challenges and it’s helped me become who I am now,” Fulwiley said.

No other guards have seen Fulwiley’s jump from her youth to college better than her teammate, senior Raven Johnson, who knew Fulwiley through the AAU circuit growing up in Atlanta, Ga.

“I remember in AAU, she was doing all these fancy things, that I knew exactly would translate to college,” Johnson said. “Lay wants to win. I think that she’s always been a winner, and I think she finds the little things, and what she’s gotta do to win. Just to see her at South Carolina and her progression, she’s come a long way.”

The basketball creativity has been there from the start. Her first AAU coach, Rob McCray, remembers her game being different as soon as she was on his radar.

“She’s never been afraid,” McCray said. “Her basketball imagination is so great, and it started a young age. That’s why I knew she would be really good. Without any training coaching, what she was able to do on her own showed me that she was going to be very successful and with all of that, she continued to work.”

The homegrown talent continues to shine on bigger and brighter stages thanks to her upbringing in basketball around Columbia. The toughness that lies in that identity is still carried with Fulwiley today.

“That kind of made me into the player that I am, and it just pushed me to play strong, play hard,” Fulwiley said. “So when I’m playing against tough guards here, it kind of brings it back to those days and I think it just prepared me mentally and physically.”

Prepared as ever, Fulwiley burst onto the scene her freshman season, averaging 11.7 points per game along with 1.7 steals per game. Her numbers as a freshman were nearly identical to what she is currently averaging as a sophomore.

Once just a girl with a dream in Columbia, Fulwiley is now at the top of the college basketball world with the Gamecocks. Signed with Under Armor, she releases a new colorway of Currys frequently with a rumored signature shoe on the way.

While her play style is tenacious and relentless on the floor, off the floor Fulwiley is zen and caring. The guard with all of the flash and flare, remains humble and hungry.

“Before we had a relationship, I wouldn’t think she was so calm and so peaceful and so sweet and nice and gentle, and she is,” Sessions said. “She’s such a gentle person. And I love that about her, that she’s a really good person, a human being. Sometimes players like that can be assholes. Lay is not that, she cares about the team and she just wants to win. She’s a winner, and I love that about her.”

Where Fulwiley is now and what she has the potential to do is the stuff dreams are made of. While some players at the top can remain too focused and forget to stop and look around, Fulwiley refuses to take any of it for granted. 803’s own keeps putting on for her city and doing things the right way.

“It means a lot to me, and it kind of shows me that my mission was accomplished,” Fulwiley said. “As a kid, I always wanted to have other kids look up to me and be that person that I looked up to when I was younger. So just to see myself kind of living my dream and as it all manifests out in the right way. It just shows how if you stay true to what you want to do and your goals, then you can achieve them.”

Fulwiley can feel the support of her hometown behind her. Rarely does she go out around town without feeling the love and support from fans. With her hometown behind her, the sky is the limit.

“You should see how many people love her in her hometown, and then she chose South Carolina,” Johnson said. “Everywhere she goes, there’s a little girl that wants to take a picture with her. They always ask her a question about how she did it, coming from South Carolina, and I can’t help but think, ‘Wow. You are an idol around here.'”

The sky is the limit for Fulwiley as she continues to shine and represent basketball in Columbia the right way on the national stage. Her hometown will always have her back as far as she goes in life.