It’s Clearly South Carolina’s Time. Here’s How Dawn Staley Crafted It.

MINNEAPOLIS — Dawn Staley was losing.

Staley, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and Hall of Famer as a player, had coached at Temple, in her hometown, Philadelphia, for eight years, but the team couldn’t get beyond the first weekend of the N.C.A.A. tournament.

So when Staley took over as coach of South Carolina’s women’s basketball team in 2008, she had one goal on her mind. “I wanted to win,” Staley said Saturday. “I wanted to win the national championship.”

Under Staley, the Gamecocks have made 10 consecutive N.C.A.A. tournaments, earned four trips to the Final Four and, after Sunday night, won two national championships. This has been a slow burn for Staley, who rebuilt South Carolina’s program from the ground up. That Sunday’s win was against Connecticut, the most decorated women’s basketball program, suggests a changing of the guard in the sport.

Staley built a powerhouse team led by Aliyah Boston, who won awards as the top player and defender. Starting guards Zia Cooke, Brea Beal and Destanni Henderson, Staley said, have “logged a lot of minutes together,” and as a result they play like “shorthand writing.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/sports/ncaabasketball/dawn-staley-south-carolina.html