Coach of the Year again? Looking at Dawn Staley’s case to be named the SEC’s best
The women’s college basketball season is winding down, which means award talk is starting to ramp up.
Dawn Staley and the No. 3 Gamecocks, who can clinch the SEC regular season title outright with a win Thursday vs Missouri, are in prime position as a team. South Carolina is 27-2, atop the SEC with a 13-1 conference record and are a No. 1 seed in the latest ESPN NCAA Tournament bracketology.
Several Gamecocks are up for individual awards as well. For example, Joyce Edwards and Ta’Niya Latson are both on late season watchlists for the Wooden Award, Madina Okot is a Top 10 finalist for the Lisa Leslie Award and Raven Johnson is a Top 10 finalist for the Nancy Lieberman Award.
The SEC’s awards will be given out first and a few Gamecocks will likely land conference honors. Their head coach has also built a strong case to be named the SEC Coach of the Year, especially in the last month of the season.
Let’s breakdown Staley’s case to be 2026 SEC Coach of the Year:
Staley’s case
Staley has won SEC Coach of the Year seven times in her career. She earned the honor from 2014 to 2016, in 2020 and then three consecutive years again from 2022 to 2024.
“I think Dawn is in that rare air that certain coaches get to where you could make the case that they’re their league’s best coach every season,” Long-time ESPN women’s basketball writer Michael Voepel told The State. “She’s just been able to do that for so long. People sometimes take it for granted or they are always looking for sometimes a reason not to give it to somebody who’s gotten it before.”
Most of Staley’s case for this year is built around South Carolina’s success despite the adversity it faced this season. SEC Network basketball analyst Steffi Sorensen said as much Monday, adding Staley would be her pick for coach of the year.
“Dawn has done a tremendous job this year,” Sorensen said. “...In the year that this league has [had], it’s pretty incredible.”
Before the season started the Gamecocks lost several contributors for various reasons.
First, South Carolina lost Te-Hina Paopao, Bree Hall and Sania Feagin to the WNBA draft. The transfer portal hit too as USC lost a young star in MiLaysia Fulwiley to LSU. Then over the summer, All-SEC forward Ashlyn Watkins announced she planned to take the year off from basketball. The cherry on top? A few weeks before the season began South Carolina lost Chloe Kitts to an ACL injury.
Still, South Carolina entered the year coming off its fifth-straight Final Four appearance with high expectations.
The injury bug has continued to bite the Gamecocks all year long. Only Joyce Edwards and Raven Johnson have played in all 29 games for South Carolina this season. Madina Okot, Tessa Johnson, Ta’Niya Latson, Maddy McDaniel, Adhel Tac and Agot Makeer have all missed at least one game due to an injury or illness this season.
Yet, South Carolina has seemingly had no problem winning games this season despite often playing short-handed.
The Gamecocks have earned a 27-2 (13-1 SEC) record to this point and locked up their fifth consecutive SEC regular season title on Sunday. USC has notched eight wins against ranked opponents and has nine Quad 1 wins (tied for second most in the country) to its name.
South Carolina is ranked in the Top 25 nationally in several statistics, including No. 3 in scoring offense (87.3 ppg), No. 3 in field goal percentage (51.2%), No. 14 in scoring defense (56 ppg) and No. 3 in scoring margin (31.3 points) .
“I think you could say the job she’s done this year with the injuries that she had — coming back from another Final Four appearances, there’s no guarantee you’re going to be able to do that again — and in the league like this, definitely makes her a candidate,” Voepel told The State. “That’s just something she’s been able to, with her success over the years, be qualified for, virtually every season.
Who is Staley’s top competitor?
The SEC Coach of the Year award is effectively a two-horse race in 2026. Staley’s biggest competitor to win the award is Vanderbilt’s Shea Ralph.
Ralph has been a front-runner for the award most of the year and is a finalist for the Naismith national coach of the year award just like Staley.
Vanderbilt had spent most of the last decade in mediocrity — finishing with a winning record in just one season between 2014 and 2023 — before Ralph took over. Ralph’s first two seasons with Vanderbilt ended with losing records, but she’s since strung together back-to-back NCAA Tournament bids and the first consecutive 20-win seasons since the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons.
“Shea’s done a great job,” Staley said before playing Vanderbilt in January. “You could almost see it coming, even though they were losing. You have to create this culture and this ability to believe, right? You get your players, they’re all on that same page. Belief. You feel good about what you’re doing. You create these habits, and you just play them.”
Ralph has vaulted Vanderbilt back into national conversation this season. The Commodores started the year 20-0 before losing their first game to Staley and the Gamecocks.
Vanderbilt is now 25-3 (11-3 SEC) and No. 5 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, it’s the first time the Commodores have reached the Top 5 in the poll in nearly 25 years. Big wins over Texas and LSU have Vanderbilt in a spot to wind up with the No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament next week.
Vanderbilt is currently on the bubble for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Commodores were the final No. 1 seed in the selection committee’s first Top 16 reveal but were upset by then-unranked Georgia 24 hours later. Vanderbilt is currently a No. 2 seed in ESPN’s latest bracketology. Vanderbilt hasn’t been a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament since 2002. The last time Vanderbilt was last a No. 2 seed was in 2007.
All that makes Ralph the biggest contender for SEC Coach of the Year other than Staley in Voepel’s eyes.
“I think this year, when you look at what Vanderbilt’s been able to do, how they’re positioning themselves, they’ve had a season that is pretty historic. Especially contextually with their program,” Voepel said. “It’s been a long, long time since they’ve been in a Final Four – 1993. And a lot of times that tends to catch voters’ eyes when it comes to voting for Coach of the Year. Both in conferences and nationally. I would say overall, (Ralph and Staley) are the two top candidates.”
Is this Staley’s best work yet?
After Staley and the Gamecocks clinched their 10th SEC regular season title in the last 13 years on Sunday, Staley was asked if she thought the coaching she’s done this season was her best.
Her answer neither agreed nor disagreed with the notion.
“I don’t know if it’s our best, that’s for you all to judge,” Staley said. “I think we do what we need to do with who we have. I think our approach has been the same. I don’t think we change who we are according to who we have healthy. We don’t ever do that. We just figure out a way.”
Some might point to the 2023-24 season as Staley’s best work. The year prior South Carolina had gone 36-1 and lost in the Final Four to Iowa. Then the Gamecocks lost five players to the WNBA draft. How did Staley and her team respond? By going 38-0 and winning the national title.
“It’s a really good coaching job. You know what it is – it’s been an underrated, great coaching job,” Voepel said. “Dawn has the same, I guess you would say issue sometimes that Geno Auriemma has at Connecticut where she’s gotten to the point where everybody expects them to be good every year, almost like it just happens. And it really doesn’t.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2026 at 7:30 AM.
