A familiar scene unfolds at the start of just about every college basketball game as each team’s starting players are introduced to the crowd. The ensuing theatrics vary from school to school but, typically, a player’s position, hometown and jersey number are relayed over the arena’s speakers and a loud cheer welcomes the player once their name is called.
Then the player strolls through a tunnel of teammates who aren’t in the starting lineup, high-fiving them along the way. At the end of the tunnel, one player initiates a personalized handshake with each of the five starters. South Carolina women’s basketball’s handshake aficionado is Adhel Tac. The 6-foot-5 redshirt freshman said there’s no formal selection process to be in charge of the handshakes. She simply volunteered to do it before the season started in October. “I wanted to do it,” Tac told The State. “I’m a very lively person, especially on the bench. A lot of people recognize my reactions and stuff like that, and I just thought it would be fun. I love to hype my teammates up. I just wanted that to be a part of what I do for games.”
Tac’s teammates concurred that her lively personality made her a natural choice. “That’s the type of person Adhel is,” Te-Hina Paopao said. “She’s really fun and goofy, really easy to get along with, and she has a really good memory. She’s really smart and I think she just fulfilled that role.” Most of the handshakes were created by Tac, her teammates said. Chloe Kitts’ lone request was that hers included blowing a kiss. Other than that she left the creative choices to Tac.
“I love doing all of them, because they’re all unique to each person,” Tac said. Raven Johnson’s handshake with Tac is highlighted by a seat belt gesture, a likely homage to her defensive prowess and the “Seat Belt Gang” of Johnson and Bree Hall. “Adhel is the goofy, energy person on the team,” Johnson told The State. “She wants to do it. She’s funny, she came up with a lot of our handshakes, honestly. So we just rely on her for the handshakes.” Tac said remembering the handshakes isn’t hard at all, adding that most are relatively easy. Last-second changes to her teammates’ handshakes, which happen from time to time, don’t bother her.
South Carolina’s starting lineup has remained virtually the same all season, making the handshakes that much easier to remember. If the lineup were to change though, there’d be no need for panic. “There’s definitely not much to it,” Tac said. “I feel like we don’t really worry about this stuff, like, ‘Oh, who’s gonna be in the starting lineup’ — that kind of thing. So it’s just when it comes, and whenever we know, that’s when we start figuring it out.”
The easiest of all the handshakes, according to Tac, is the one that’s changed the most.
That honor goes to Paopao. “Te-Hina changed hers. This is actually the third one this season,” Tac said. “I don’t remember what the first one was. We always keep the first part of it with the hand slap, it’s just the last move is different. … Sometimes she’ll come up to me and she goes, ‘Oh, I want to change it,’ and then she’ll pick stuff.” Paopao said her handshake and others were inspired in part by various TikTok dances and audios. With March Madness right around the corner, she decided she wanted a simple, no-funny-business handshake that concludes with a salute.
“I wanted to change it for every season, throughout (the year),” Paopao said through a laugh. “So non-conference changed it, conference changed it and now it’s a new season so I changed it as well. This one’s more of a locked-in type of handshake, not more of a goofy one that I’ve been accustomed to with her. So it’s more of a locked-in one and she’s been very, very fun with that.” Something as small as a pregame handshake gets lost in the grand scheme of things when it comes to basketball. Still, it’s just another way for a young player like Tac to have an impact on the game, especially when her playing time has been limited.
She’s played in 21 games this year and is averaging 3.9 minutes of action per game. Her best game of the year came against Missouri in January, when she recorded nine points and six rebounds in five minutes. Tac’s job is important — just ask Paopao. “It impacts the game a lot, especially for me,” Paopao said. “When you go do handshakes, it’s just something that tells you that you need to lock in and it’s just time to get the team going and that we’re gonna have to compete for 40 minutes.”
