😳 Chloe Kitts ELBOWS Defender, Officials Call Common Foul After Review | #1 South Carolina vs SDSU.
Gamecocks’ Chloe Kitts seeing the results of dedicated offseason regimen.
Chloe Kitts’ offseason work has bled into her game, where she is second on the team in scoring and first in rebounding.
COLUMBIA — She didn’t need to, or have to. Chloe Kitts was just fine, starting for an undefeated national championship team … and posted a double-double in the title game.
Improvement? What was there to improve upon?
A lot, she answered herself.
“I lost 17 pounds after last season. All the weight I gained in the offseason, I lost,” South Carolina’s junior forward said. “I was falling at every position, and I didn’t want to be like that anymore. I knew I needed to get stronger.”
She watched herself on film. There was no questioning Kitts’ willingness to stake out a spot in the paint and tussle for points and rebounds. It’s just that late in the season, Kitts saw herself get pushed off-balance, viewed an automatic layup transformed into a rim-ball miss, gazed at some other post player get position and snare the board Kitts had her eye on.
The player who has been lauded by coach Dawn Staley for constantly striving to refine her game for her future as a pro cut off the TV and declared.
“Not happening again. Nope.”
“It was really in April, when school ended, when we started having those conversations,” said Molly Binetti, the Gamecocks’ sports performance coach. “Even when she first got here, we were all on the same page about wanting her to get stronger. This past offseason was her light-bulb moment.”
It wasn’t a cut-and-dry method to add bulk. Everyone’s body is different.
Kitts is 6-foot-2 and slender. Lengthy arms and legs. She was fine with her upper-body strength but wanted to be stronger, lower.
“She’s never going to be really bulky. Like when we had Laeticia Amihere, with those super-long limbs, she was never going to be super-muscular,” Binetti said. “The hardest part of that was being consistent with the workouts.”
No problem there. This was Kitts’ idea. She was going to stick to it.
So much so that Binetti sometimes had to tell her to slow down. It’s hard to “overtrain” because of the amount of energy expended in practices and games throughout a full season, but in the offseason, there was some caution.
“Sometimes for lifting, they’d tell me to take an off day,” Kitts said, “like a, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t come in today.’”
Then there was the other part of the plan.
Beep!
He’s waiting with a cup after every practice, every game.
“It’s a chocolate protein shake,” assistant director of Olympic sports nutrition Jeremy Ford said. “It’s 880 calories, with 104 grams of protein, 88 grams of carbohydrates. It’s a good hearty shake for her to have.”
It’s about eating three good meals per day, not just three meals. Protein, carbs, fruits and vegetables for vitamins. He’ll help them meal-plan and grocery shop for a week’s worth of food when they can’t get to the actual training table.
Kitts fell right into line, checking in with Ford about what she ate that day or sending him pictures of her meals. With her new endeavor, it was going to require more.
“The plan is for her to eat at least six times per day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and three snacks or smaller meals,” Ford said. “So the snacks could be a protein shake and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or a couple of PB&Js and a fruit.”
Kitts has alarms set every day to remind her to eat. Getting used to it was the hard part, but because she’s so active now between lifting, practicing and playing, it’s just about adjusting the times with varying tipoffs, especially on the road.
She burns the calories nearly effortlessly, but has to keep adding them. That proved difficult over the past two offseasons since she was involved with USA basketball, and Kitts didn’t like a lot of the overseas cuisine.
“She was abroad for those few weeks and then in Colorado Springs, so she could never really get into that momentum of focusing on her development and really eating,” father Jason Kitts said. “We’d send my wife overseas with suitcases full of snacks for her.”
Grind
She had a couple of weeks off, visiting family and being a college student, as the school year finished and Kitts relaxed. But since May, she’s almost always been in Columbia, sticking to her routine.
It includes lifting weights on gamedays, something Staley mentioned as a tactic the pros use.
“It’s like a 25-minute workout,” Kitts said. “Low reps, weight’s not super-heavy.”
She’s second on the team in scoring, first in rebounds. The Gamecocks traveled over 13,000 miles for their varied non-conference slate; now they’ll get a chance to get back into a steady schedule after three straight home games, then two SEC games per week.
“She seems extremely locked in and focused. Through her career, she’s had some ups and downs but it seems she’s able to understand what that rollercoaster of success looks like,” said Jason, who never misses a game. “She’s not letting the next play, the next situation affect her mindset.”
“I feel more locked in,” said Kitts, who also consulted USC’s on-staff sports psychologist during the buildup to the season. “I feel way more confident than last year. My body feels good, and I have people around me to instill confidence in me.”
Kitts’ feet are staying under her, on and off the court. She’s playing and feeling her best.
Committed to the work, committed to the game.
Committed to confidence.
