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Women's College Basketball

Dawn of a New Era: Staley Leads South Carolina to Unprecedented Perfect Championship Season

Cleveland — The night before the national championship game, Dawn Staley took a sip of water and started to cough when she stood in front of her squad during a meeting.

“You about to cry, Coach?” a player called from the back of the room.

“No,” she said and then paused. “But I might on Sunday if we win.”

The players chuckled, but her helpers realized that she meant what she said. They have witnessed the weight Staley has carried this season as she is adapted to a younger, less structured squad. A group that occasionally failed to reply to texts or frequently arrived late for meetings. A squad that is so different from the group that finished their season ago.

The Gamecocks’ roster for this season has been compared to a daycare by Staley, and nobody in the locker room really objects to that. With their own distinct brand of comedy, they wear it as a badge of honor. Nevertheless, they continued to triumph on the court as they attempted to capture just the tenth perfect season in the annals of women’s collegiate basketball.

With one minute remaining, the coaches convened on the sidelines, certain of an 87-75 victory over Iowa, the clock merely symbolic at this juncture, and the national championship trophy virtually bolstering their mounting argument. Tears started to fall from Staley. As she gave her coaches and teammates an embrace as the clock reached the end, they kept falling. They went on while she bent to collect her breath and during her post-game interview on the court. She made no attempt to stop them. She desired to deal with the feelings immediately.

“It was emotional for me because of how it ended last year,” Staley said. “It’s heavy, it’s heavy. You carry the burden of every single one of your players, all the coaches and staff members that put so much into our team. And it’s a heavy load to be undefeated, to finish the job. And you get emotional because you just want that for them, and you’re happy that you’re able to — because only one team wins the national championship.”

The Gamecocks were not that one team the previous season. They may have been the most talented and best team. From the start of the season until the end of the tournament, South Carolina was the clear favorite to win. The Gamecocks, however, didn’t. They surprisingly came up short against Iowa. Despite doing everything correctly, that senior class—which finished 129-9 over four seasons and lost just three games (a total of seven points) in their junior and senior seasons—did not conclude their careers with a victory. Like 350 other schools, they were defeated at the end.

“Last year rocked me,” Staley said. “It rocked me.”

In Staley’s mind, that didn’t completely compute.

How can a squad that performs flawlessly on all fronts fail to win the national championship? How could she not lead that set of players over the finish line? They never gave Staley anything to complain about or wince about. How could Staley’s greatest team to date fail to win that championship?

“I think it drove her,” assistant coach Lisa Boyer said. “We still talk about we didn’t get over the hill with that group. They were so talented and such a strong unit. … It was hard to understand.”

When the current season started, Staley was still processing how the previous one ended. a group including five fresh players. a change from Oregon. Not a single player with more than three career starts, and not a single player who averaged more than 20 minutes each game. It was completely different from what she was working with the previous season in many aspects.

Staley has consistently discussed the appearance, sound, and atmosphere of a squad. And this one too? It was ridiculous and boisterous. According to Staley, the players had a conversation about nothing specific. It was not only that different from the group from the previous year. They were not like any squad she had ever been on before. Not simply in a few of the techniques they used during playing, but primarily off the field.

The phrases “pivot” and “meet them where they are” would be used more frequently than ever before in staff meetings. Staley discussed how the coaches would have to serve as the team’s captain and coach in a sense because they were such a young team. It required more effort and vitality. As the aircraft taxied down the runway, they were constructing it.

“If we would’ve stayed the way we were with the freshies,” assistant coach Jolette Law said, “it just wouldn’t have worked.”

“It’s push and pull, but the standard remains the same,” Boyer added. “You have to meet them halfway.”

That push and pull meant realizing that players were going to take 3s in transition. (“When have you ever seen a Dawn Staley group take a 3 in transition?” said Khadijah Sessions, a former player and assistant coach. “Never.”) It means doing away with the restriction against using phones the night before a game. Players would have to take four days off following the SEC championship game. “She was like, ‘Guys, this is what they need. They need space. They need to recharge their batteries,’” Law said. “That’s just being able to understand the makeup and feel of what we have.”

Junior Bree Hall stated that it was not until the Gamecocks’ road trip to North Carolina and Duke, which took place one month into the season, that she realized exactly how much Staley had adapted to them. Hall asked Ariana Moore, the team’s director of basketball operations, whether she and the other players could get cheesecake for dessert during a team dinner at The Cheesecake Factory.

“The last two years, when someone said, ‘You can ask Coach,’ it means, ‘don’t even ask,’” Hall said. “Don’t even bother.”

But Hall did. Staley relented. The players got their cheesecake.

These are the moments of perfection, amid a rain of confetti and tears: Cell phones, vacation days, room, fresh batteries, and cheesecake. It is the strongest indication that Staley is far from done with her coaching career, even after 25 and a half years. Her tears are a testament to the burden she faced during a year of daily tests.

“This is probably the first time in my career that a team has more stamina in certain areas. Like much more stamina than I could discipline them for,” Staley said. “So I’ve learned to not fight certain battles. Not core value battles, not the core principle of who we are and who I stand for, but just that their identity, they play loose. They play free.”

After four seasons in which the club performed flawlessly, the adventure did not conclude with joy one year ago. It did not conclude with a trophy raised and a net thrown over Staley’s shoulders a year ago. However, on Sunday, she ascended the ladder following an entirely new and, in many respects, more difficult route than any previous one. It involved additional readjusting and pivoting, a daily test, and dealing with the deeply upsetting finale to the previous season. This year’s sight, sound, and feel were entirely different, but the conclusion was also very different. This year has altered Staley’s sight, sound, and feel in a number of ways.

The Gamecocks were something more uncommon: they were flawless. They may not have done everything perfectly, or even nearly so.

(Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)

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