Dawn Staley’s message to Gamecocks during holiday break: ‘Think about basketball’
For Dawn Staley and the South Carolina women’s basketball team, 2019 and nonconference play are in the past, with 2020 and SEC games fast approaching.
The Gamecocks finished off the first portion of its schedule Sunday with a thorough win over No. 25 South Dakota. After starting the season in the top 10 nationally — but with plenty of questions regarding the talented but inexperienced freshmen — USC moved up to No. 4 in the AP poll and a No. 1 seed in the latest ESPN bracketology to close out the calendar year. At 12-1, the Gamecocks already have a pair of top-10 wins to their name and have exceeded most observers’ preseason expectations.
Not Staley’s, though — she didn’t come in expecting to dominate or struggle, knowing how volatile freshmen’s performances can be.
“I came in with really no expectation as far as what our record would look like at this point. And I just kind of just let them shape it, and they’ve done a great job with doing everything we asked them to do,” Staley said. “I mean, the team chemistry is a lot far more advanced than I thought it would be. And they shaped it. We just told them, ‘Hey we got something, we got a chance to do something special with who’s in the room,’ and then they took it upon themselves to just make it work on and off the court.”
Now the team’s in the midst of its longest layoff of the season — players have scattered across the country for a quick holiday break, and they won’t play again until Jan. 2 against No. 13 Kentucky, a stretch of 10 days between contests.
A week-long gap between games didn’t knock Staley’s team off its rhythm around finals. But with momentum building ahead of the conference opener against a rival expected to be near the top of the standings, Staley made it clear after defeating South Dakota that her players couldn’t afford to check out completely for Christmas.
“It’s hard. I tell them to enjoy themselves, because they’ve been working hard, harder than they’ve ever worked in their lives, especially our younger players, because this is all new. Last December, they’re getting ready for a high school game. This year, you’re getting ready to play conference play. So enjoy it,” Staley said. “I told them to think about basketball. You can’t just take off five, six days, completely. I said, watch yourselves, think about it a little bit. You don’t necessarily have to go out and be physical, you can work on the mental part of it. So I stress that, whether or not they listen. But we will have the trash cans out for our practices when they return.”
That message was echoed by Staley’s veteran leaders, junior LeLe Grissett and senior Tyasha Harris. They have first-hand experience of how challenging that SEC opener can be — the last two seasons, the Gamecocks escaped with one-possession wins against Texas A&M to kick things off. South Carolina has won the first game of the conference season every year since 2013.
“Obviously it’s a long break. But we’re going to focus, we’re going to have some sort of mindset of basketball and make sure we don’t leave that completely and come back ready to prepare for SEC play,” Harris said.
NEXT
What: South Carolina vs. Kentucky
When: 7:40 p.m. Jan. 2
Where: Colonial Life Arena
TV: SEC Network Plus
Radio: 107.5 The Game in Columbia area
