Winning 101: Dawn Staley, USC maintain success against other elite WBB programs

Jeremiah Holloway

No. 1 South Carolina’s heavyweight matchup against No. 2 Stanford was a nationally televised game played in front of a sold-out crowd in Maples Pavilion.

Fans tuned in on an NFL Sunday to watch the best two teams in women’s college basketball go at it, and the game lived up to the hype with a 76-71 South Carolina overtime victory.

When Dawn Staley arrived as coach at USC in 2008, the program was in no position to play in a game like Sunday’s. Any time it did face a storied program such as Stanford, UConn or Tennessee, it struggled to keep up — sometimes getting ran off the court.

But the win against Stanford gave Staley her 101st win against an Associated Press Top 25 opponent and the 16th consecutive victory of that variety.

Nowadays, Staley makes it a point to play against some of the elite teams in the country.

“You’re measuring yourself,” Staley told reporters on Saturday. “If in the NCAA tournament you have to play up against a team like Stanford, you have some familiarity. Whether you win or lose, you have some familiarity, and it just helps preparation later on down the line.”

Coaching against multi-time national champions like Tara Vanderveer and Geno Auriemma served as learning experiences for Staley. She recalled some losses against top teams early in her career, and said she sought to build off of them.

“You could take the Stanford losses, you could take the UConn losses, you could take the Tennessee losses,” Staley said. “When you lose to traditionally rich programs like those programs that pretty much ran women’s basketball, you try to emulate that. You try to take a little bit of what you see that they’re great at, and you try to create that with your own program.”

South Carolina brought back 10 players from last year’s national championship run, one of two that Staley’s won at USC.

Some of the team’s most experienced members played in big games before becoming champions. Six of the Gamecocks have been with the program since 2019. That group of players lost a postseason to the COVID-19 pandemic, but went 32-1 overall in 2020. It also reached the Final Four prior to last season’s title-winning season.

“I love when coach makes the schedule hard for us because, down the road, it helps us in the long run,” senior guard Zia Cooke said.

Rather than starting 2021-22 with a mid-major opponent, Staley’s Gamecocks opened up against then-No. 5 N.C. State. The squad also played such teams as Oregon, UConn and Duke before beginning conference play.

This year, the team scheduled a closed-door scrimmage against North Carolina before the start of the regular season. USC will also play UConn on the road in the midst of SEC play.

“It gives us a chance to see where we’re at against top teams,” Cooke said.

The victory against Stanford came through a 12-point comeback from the Gamecocks. As USC inched closer, the Cardinal found ways to maintain the lead — for most of the game. After the early moments of the first quarter, USC didn’t regain a lead until overtime.

Senior forward and reigning Final Four Most Outstanding Player Aliyah Boston forced the extra time on a jumpshot with 2.1 seconds left in regulation.

The stars of the game like Boston, Cooke, Haley Jones and Cameron Brink ended as the game’s leading scorers.

“This is what women’s basketball is about, has been about,” Staley said after the game. “I think now is the time that the product that we’re putting on the floor should be seen by as many eyes as possible.”

So while Sunday’s game was big for the sport, it wasn’t unheard of for Staley.

“We’ve been doing it for a long time,” Staley said. “This is par for the course. I think television now is starting to pick up on it to broadcast it, because we’ve been doing this for quite some time.”

South Carolina wrapped up a four-game road trip Tuesday night with a game at Cal Poly.

Next four USC WBB games

  • Sunday: home vs. Hampton, noon (SEC Network Plus)

  • Tuesday: home vs. UCLA, 7 p.m. (SEC Network)

  • Dec. 3: home vs. Memphis, 3 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)

  • Dec. 11: home vs. Liberty, 2 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)

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