Gamecocks explain why Winston Gandy will be an ‘amazing’ head coach at his next stop
Four days after he was introduced as Grand Canyon University’s next women’s basketball coach, Winston Gandy was on a basketball court, hard at work.
Hard at work for South Carolina, that is.
“Ice! Ice!” Gandy yelled as he ran USC’s guards through various pick-and-roll drills Thursday afternoon at Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. “Let’s go!”
That’s Gandy’s reality for the next week (or two weeks). He’s an incoming Division I head coach at GCU, fired up about his first opportunity to lead a program … but he’s also a celebrated assistant who saw it as important to finish what he started.
News broke on Monday that Gandy, currently in his second season as one of Dawn Staley’s three lead assistant coaches, would be the next coach at Grand Canyon. He replaces Molly Miller, who led GCU to its first NCAA Tournament and a 30-game winning streak. Miller was formally named Arizona State’s new coach last Saturday.
By Monday morning, Gandy was on Grand Canyon’s campus in Phoenix for his introductory news conference, talking about his long-term plans for the program.
Gandy’s jump after two seasons as a South Carolina assistant came as no surprise to Staley. A Maryland alum who’s previously worked with Rice, Duke and the NBA’s Washington Wizards, he’s considered a rising star in the business.
And Staley fanned the flames herself when, last April, she heaped praise on him for assembling the defensive game plan that South Carolina used to limit Iowa star Caitlin Clark in that year’s national championship game in Cleveland.
“We knew he was on borrowed time when we got him,” she said Thursday.
Seeing it through with the Gamecocks
As for Gandy’s timeline? That wasn’t a given. For years, it was standard practice for incoming coaches (especially assistants) to stay with their former programs through the postseason before transitioning to their next job.
But the transfer portal has changed that calculus.
The portal opened for Division I women’s basketball players to enter on Tuesday and remains open for roughly a month, through April 23. There’s enough time for an incoming coach to play it both ways. Ride out the current season, then hop over.
Some programs, though, haven’t seen it that way.
Miami, for example, hired Duke assistant Jai Lucas as its next men’s basketball coach. News leaked in late February, and his hire was made official in early March, before the Blue Devils even finished the regular season.
Lucas, in a move all parties agreed on and Duke coach Jon Scheyer said he supported, then left Duke after its regular-season finale, skipping the ACC and NCAA Tournaments to get a head start on building his own roster for next year.
Gandy, though, is seeing it through with South Carolina. After his hiring broke Monday, various outlets reported and Gandy confirmed at his introductory news conference that he’d be sticking with the Gamecocks through the postseason.
After going 38-0 last year and winning their third national championship in seven years during Gandy’s first year, the Gamecocks are right back in the thick of it.
South Carolina (32-3) won the SEC Tournament championship, was named the No. 2 overall seed in the bracket and marched past its first two NCAA Tournament opponents, No. 16 seed Tennessee Tech and No. 9 Indiana, with little resistance.
Next up is No. 4 Maryland in Birmingham on Friday (5 p.m. ET, ESPN). The winner of the South Carolina-Maryland game will play either Duke or UNC in an Elite Eight game on Sunday, with the winner advancing to the Final Four in Tampa.
Gandy was not immediately available for comment Thursday in Birmingham but told reporters in Phoenix earlier this week that Grand Canyon “provides just about everything a student-athlete could want” and he was excited to get started.
GCU currently competes in the West Coast Conference but will transition to the Mountain West (a stronger conference that would, in theory, offer a clear path to the NCAA Tournament) as early as 2026, according to the school.
Staley said she was “super happy” for Gandy, whom she hired away from Duke two summers ago to replace longtime assistant Fred Chmiel. Chmiel also left the Gamecocks for a Division I head coaching job at Bowling Green in Ohio.
“It was a dream of his to be a head coach,” Staley said of Gandy, adding that the Gamecocks were “hoping for a little bit more time with him, but duty calls.”
A bittersweet departure
South Carolina players surveyed by The State agreed with Staley’s assessment. Gandy’s looming departure – which he initially told the team about last Sunday, shortly after it beat Indiana in a round of 32 game at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia and one day before the news went public — was bittersweet.
But it made sense.
“I was very happy,” senior guard Bree Hall said. “I mean, I could only be happy. … I have to definitely give him his flowers. He’s been an amazing coach. He’s just so prepared. He knows the game so well.”
Senior guard Raven Johnson recalled how Gandy “stayed up for hours and hours” putting together a detailed South Carolina game plan to slow down Iowa’s Clark in the national championship game on essentially a one-day turnaround.
“I was like, ‘How do you even know this stuff?’” Johnson said. “We bought into what he had on that scout. And whatever he had on that scout, it played a part.”
As for the fact Gandy chose to stick around finish the year, which could lead the Gamecocks to Tampa’s Amalie Arena with a chance at another title next Sunday?
“It’s good to know he has faith in us to finish out this journey and he wants to do it with us,” freshman guard Maddy McDaniel said.
“He better stay put with us the rest of the year,” sophomore guard Tessa Johnson said, laughing. “No, I’m kidding. It means everything. He’s done so much for us.”
Over the next two weeks, he’ll try to do a little more.
