Why South Carolina’s Dawn Staley calls these 2 guards the best duo she’s coached
Te-Hina Paopao and Raven Johnson will be South Carolina’s lead guards this season. Full stop.
Coach Dawn Staley told reporters at the 2023 SEC Media Days event that she’s been impressed with Paopao and Johnson’s chemistry over the offseason. They play off each other very well, Staley said, but have also shown they can thrive individually.
“I don’t think I’ve every had two lead guards of this caliber on our basketball team in all my years of coaching,” Staley said.
Paopao, a senior transfer from Oregon, has done exactly what Staley recruited her to do. She’s been a vocal leader. She’s proven she can score. And she’s improved on defense.
A hallmark of Staley’s South Carolina program is its defense. Paopao said Staley stressed as much to her over the offseason. If she wants to play, Paopao said Staley told her, she’ll have to box out. And that she has.
“She’s committed to it,” Staley said of Paopao. “She’s come a long way. She sticks her nose in it. She takes charges. She’s playing angles a lot better. She’s a willing participant and giving it up on the defensive side of the ball.”
In three years starting for the Ducks, Paopao put together a career 38% three-point shooting percentage, having shot 42.2% last season (14th best in the nation) and made 81 threes (37th in the country). Outside shooting was a glaring weakness for an otherwise blemish-less 2022-23 South Carolina squad, which shot just 31% from three.
Of USC’s six returners, Johnson is the only one with starting experience. She filled in for Kierra Fletcher in three games last season. She had the 17th-best assist-to-turnover ratio in the nation last year (2.37), and her 3.4 assists per game were ninth in the SEC. And over the summer she helped Team USA win silver at the 2023 FIBA AmeriCup.
The past, present and future are bright in South Carolina when it comes to guard play. Between Paopao, Johnson and five-star MiLaysia Fulwiley, the Gamecocks are not short on contributors.
“I love playing with Raven,” Paopao said. “She’s a great backcourt. And Lay (MiLaysia Fulwiley), she’s learning. She’s doing a great job being coachable and coming in with the mindset that, ‘Hey, I can do this and do that.’ So we’re still learning off each other, but I have a pretty good feeling about how everyone likes to play and what their dislikes are.”
This story was originally published October 19, 2023 at 4:41 PM.
