Staley’s been to Final Four before

The banner flutters alongside several others.

Dawn Staley doesn’t glare or shake her head. She’s been in the building six times, and there were more important things to worry about than the banner in the rafters.

But there are moments when it catches her eye, and for a second, she remembers.

“It was so long ago, but when you bring it up, there are ill feelings,” Staley said. “We were right there. We had the game in our hands.”

The “National Champions 1991” banner at Tennessee’s Thompson-Boling Arena is in a group of seven others. To Staley, it’s a painful reminder of how close it was to hanging at Virginia, in deeper shades of orange and blue.

Staley, then a junior, had a Most Outstanding Player performance in the 1991 Final Four, scoring 39 points and snaring 19 rebounds in two games, including 28 points in the title game. But Virginia didn’t win. Staley is the only player from a losing team to win MOP, but it was no consolation. She fouled out and was forced to watch as Tennessee won 70-67 in overtime.

Don’t think it hasn’t been brought up, now that Staley is taking South Carolina to the Final Four.

“I know I’ve accomplished a lot – gold medals, being a part of Olympic basketball, being a part of United States basketball,” Staley said. “The one thing that’s always escaped me is the national championship.”

The Cavaliers made three straight Final Fours from 1990-92 but never won a title, falling each year to the team that did. Staley and her classmates progressed from wide-eyed sophomores in 1990 to knowing they were going to win it in 1992, but left disappointed each year.

It remains the most successful period in Virginia history. It also remains the most agonizing, especially in ’91.

“We really felt we had it won,” said Debbie Ryan, Virginia’s coach from 1977-2011. “We were up six or eight with about eight minutes to go, we hit a 3-pointer and Tonya Cardoza gets called for boxing out underneath. Even though the shot was clearly out of the hand, they took the shot away from us.”

There were other moments. “We listened to Debbie in the timeout, we came back on the floor, and as players, we had our own little timeout,” Staley said. “Specifically, I was telling Tonya, ‘Don’t go for the steal.’

“She did, and I ended up having to foul Dena Head. She hit both.”

Staley said she and Cardoza joke about that, Staley prefacing conversations with, “Why’d you go for the steal?” It’s been over 20 years, yet one gets the sense that there’s still bitterness. Not just over that game, but a glorious three-year run that was destined to end in a title and never did.

“That was the toughest game of my life,” said Heidi (Burge) Horton, who was on the 1991 Virginia team. “We came up short. The hardest loss of my career, because we had it all.”

Always one to watch the film of a lost game over and over, Staley stayed in her room, rewinding that gut-wrenching defeat.

“After coming back from New Orleans, she was quiet, she didn’t want to talk about it,” said Audra Smith, now the coach at Clemson. “She didn’t care about the (MOP award), that meant nothing. Because she wanted to take her team to win it all.”

Horton concurred. “I never saw Dawn with uncontrollable emotion,” she said. “She was a stern leader – ‘Tears don’t get you anywhere. Gritting your teeth and working hard does.’ ”

In 1992, Staley and the other seniors knew it was their year. “There was an approach to the season like, ‘Nobody’s going to stop us now,’ ” Ryan said. “‘There’s just no way.’”

Stanford outlasted Virginia 66-65. Staley scored 19 in her farewell performance.

“That should have been our national title,” Smith said. “(Staley) was so upset, begging the refs, ‘No, this can’t be over!’ That was really hard. To get so close and not get the gold ring and win the championship, is really hard.”

Ryan always felt her star guard took it too roughly, blamed herself too much when Virginia didn’t win. The knowledge that she helped create a winning culture didn’t soothe the ache of getting so close to the biggest prize and not grabbing it.

“Obviously, Dawn’s going to take that very hard,” Ryan said. “She was always a very, very hard worker.”

Smith said she has texted Staley since she clinched her Final Four trip, and Staley responded. She tagged Smith “Big A” at UVa and texted back, “Big A, God is so good.” Ryan, who prepared for three Final Fours as a coach, hasn’t messaged her pupil because she knows how busy she is, but is beaming over the accomplishment.

Smith, Horton and Ryan would love to see Staley take that final step. While it’s USC’s first appearance in the Final Four, they each see the same attitude that was built in Charlottesville – from this point, the Gamecocks will consider the Final Four part of their season. They won’t just hope to get there.

“There was never a thought of we weren’t going to make it,” Smith said. “We would check off around April 2, that’s the end of the season. That was always our thought process.”

Staley has hung banners at Temple and USC. She’s deservedly proud of every one.

What would it mean to hang one as big as that one in Thompson-Boling? It wouldn’t remove the disappointment from 1991, but it would give her something, all these years later, to match it.

“Those experiences fuel me to this day. Maybe it wasn’t in the cards. Maybe there’s something bigger that will affect a lot more people,” Staley said. “Hopefully we can avoid that awful feeling, that void of not winning the national championship.

“Hopefully the cards are in our favor this year. And I’ll be able to hoist the trophy for all those people that have played an integral role in my life.”

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This story was originally published April 1, 2015 at 9:10 PM with the headline "Staley’s been to Final Four before."