Dawn Staley won’t drink the Kool Aid, but USC’s dismantling of Kentucky fuels hype
At halftime Thursday, Dawn Staley had to remind her South Carolina women’s basketball team of something.
“I (told them), Kentucky is a really good basketball team,” Staley said.
It bore repeating, because after 20 minutes of play, the No. 4 Gamecocks were pummeling the Wildcats, ranked 13th in the nation in both the AP and coaches polls, by a score of 49-28 in a game that felt over midway through the second quarter.
“You’re making them play the way that they’re playing. You are,” Staley continued to her players. “If you allow them to be comfortable in their skin, they can put a lot of points on the scoreboard.”
Instead, relentless defensive pressure and unselfish offense made South Carolina look unstoppable and Kentucky completely overmatched, as the Gamecocks tied the program’s second-highest point total in an SEC game.
“They were really, really tough tonight, really good talented team with a lot of speed,” Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell said. “And I thought they just came out very aggressive, we got rattled early against a real tough physical defense, and we’ll have to have to get better from that. But you know, just a good team with really good athletes, and they played real hard tonight and we were just kind of back on our heels all night long and had a hard time finding rhythm.”
In the run-up to the top-15 showdown, Staley said she stressed to her freshmen the added intensity that comes with the start of conference play. But against a lineup comprised of mostly upperclassmen and one star sophomore in Rhyne Howard, the Gamecocks’ three first-year starters didn’t seem fazed at all.
“I thought the first half was pretty special, to be quite honest,” Staley said of her team’s performance. “They executed. They locked in. They played the ball screens as well as you could have played them, they made it very difficult for them to feel comfortable and and get shots in their comfort zone.”
“The game was intense and the crowd did a great job of keeping us going and continuing to push us, but I think we came out just focused on what we had to do, and I think we did a great job of executing on offense and ball pressure and defense,” freshman forward Aliyah Boston said.
Through 14 games, including five against ranked opponents, Staley is still waiting to see the inconsistency and struggles that are supposed to plague teams that rely on young players to step in and play right away. Instead, the Gamecocks seem to be getting better and better.
“This revelation is kind of new to me, and I’m approaching it like, you know, we’re not a very good basketball team, meaning just making sure that we’re paying attention to the details. Because you never know when youth will show up,” Staley said. “But we’re gonna ride it. We’re gonna keep teaching them, we’re going to keep bringing things to their attention. I think (seniors Tyasha Harris and Mikiah Herbert-Harrigan and junior LeLe Grissett) are doing a great job at leading them.”
While Staley is concerned with the details, fans and observers around women’s college basketball are seeing a team rising faster and farther than most anticipated, from lower top 10 in the preseason to a projected No. 1 seed.
ESPN analyst Steffi Sorensen summed it up with a tweet Thursday night in the immediate aftermath of the Gamecocks’ rout.
“South Carolina tonight. Good Lordy,” she wrote.
The possibility of a Final Four run is still a long way off though, and in the meantime, all Staley can do is focus on keeping her players hungry despite the growing hype.
“I was just actually talking to (assistant coach Jolette Law) on the bench. I said I’m not gonna drink the Kool Aid, you know, meaning ... I tell our team when they play well. I tell our team that when we’re locked in, we could probably beat anybody in the country. But when we’re not, I coach from when we’re not. I coach on that edge of it not being perfect basketball and try to penetrate them in that, because I don’t want their heads to get too big, but I also want them to be confident in what we’re doing and if we’re executing in the right way, I want them to feel good about it so they can have repeat performances,” Staley said.
NEXT
Who: No. 4 South Carolina (13-1, 1-0 SEC) vs. Alabama (10-3, 0-0 SEC)
When: 6 p.m. Sunday
Where: Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Watch: SEC Network
Listen: 107.5 FM in Columbia area
This story was originally published January 3, 2020 at 8:40 AM.
