Reunion and a rivalry: Dawn Staley prepares to face ‘family’ at Mississippi State
For a decade, Dawn Staley and Nikki McCray-Penson were “in the trenches” together, building up the South Carolina women’s basketball program. The head coach and her ace recruiter and assistant spent years turning the program from SEC cellar dweller to powerhouse, culminating in a national championship in 2017.
So come Thursday night, when Staley and the No. 4 Gamecocks visit McCray-Penson and her new team, No. 21 Mississippi State, there will most likely be smiles, hugs and hellos. But then the whistle will blow, and one of the SEC’s most important rivalries will begin.
“I love Nikki like a sister,” Staley said Wednesday. “So I want her to do well in every game besides the one that we match up against each other.”
“It’s like family, you know?” McCray-Penson said. “That’s what it is, very much. I’m a relationship person, and these are lasting relationships. They’re family to me, I’m going to be really excited to see them, and we’ll talk after the game. But we’re all competitors and we want to win, and we want to win the right way.”
Thursday will mark USC’s first meeting with MSU since McCray-Penson took over as head coach in April. She left Carolina after that 2017 title for her first head coaching job at Old Dominion and engineered a rapid turnaround that had the Monarchs at 24-6 last season. Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer announced he was leaving for Texas, clearing the way for McCray-Penson to return to the SEC — and her first time going up against South Carolina.
She’s stepping into a rivalry that has come to define SEC women’s basketball. The two programs have combined to win every regular season and tournament title in the last six years and consistently finished 1-2 atop the league’s standings.
“I’ve been a part of a program at South Carolina where we built it up, and I also was a part of the program when I saw Mississippi State build their program up, so it has definitely become a rivalry game for us,” McCray-Penson acknowledged. “Every game is important, not just the South Carolinas or the Georgias or whatever — every game is important.”
Still, there’s no denying that when the Gamecocks and Bulldogs meet, intense matchups ensue. In the last 10 games in the series, three have been decided by four or fewer points, and none have been by more than 14.
“The rivalry is there. It doesn’t matter where we are in rankings. We always seem to find a way to to get ourselves in a barn burner,” Staley said. “A lot of those players have been at the very top of our league, and a lot of them have been pretty much second place to us. So I know coming into the game, they’re gonna want to win, regardless of what Nikki and I have, or Nikki being a part of our family. They’re gonna want to win, just as badly as we want to win.”
Over time, the rivalry has been almost entirely respectful, with coaches and players singing the other program’s praises. That’s highly unlikely to change with Staley and McCray-Penson in charge — the two continually talk and text, McCray-Penson said, sending each other encouragement over the years.
Gamecocks senior guard LeLe Grissett still remembers when she was being recruited by McCray-Penson. The assistant was a big reason why she wanted to come to South Carolina, Grissett said, and she was “heartbroken” when McCray-Penson told her she was going to Old Dominion.
“Energetic, loving. She’s just so loving and sweet, it was like a mom away from home,” Grissett said of McCray’s personality. “So I talked to her, she was encouraging me. ... She can make you have a smile, pretty much.
“I’m gonna always have love for her. There will be no hard feelings. When I’m on the the court, it’s just straight basketball, but when I’m off the court, it’s all love.”
As the team’s lone senior, though, Grissett also feels a responsibility to make sure the younger players know how important the rivalry remains.
“They’re just a team that we can’t lose to and we don’t want to lose to. It’s always a fight,” Grissett said. “South Carolina vs. Mississippi State, it’s always been a big game. I don’t know why, but in the past years, it’s always been a big game.”
NEXT USC BASKETBALL GAME
Who: No. 4 South Carolina (12-1, 7-0 SEC) vs. No. 21 Mississippi State (8-4, 3-3 SEC)
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Where: Humphrey Coliseum, Starkville, Mississippi
Watch: ESPN
