The brilliant resume keeps building for the South Carolina women's basketball team and head coach Dawn Staley as they beat Oregon State Sunday, 70-58, and have reached their fourth straight Final Four appearance. The Gamecocks are two wins away from their third national championship in program history as Staley said after the game that she reflects on the loss in the tournament last season and how her beliefs put her back on the biggest stage according to Sports Spectrum.
“That's our team, they're resilient,” Staley said. “They deserve this. They've worked extremely hard to be where we are. I'm super proud of them. I'm giving all the glory to God though. God is really funny, he's really funny. The devastating loss we had last year, to put us back here with a totally different team. If you don't believe in God, something's wrong with you, seriously. I'm a believer because he makes things come true.”
Staley talks about the players commitment to the Gamecocks
Besides reaching the Final Four four straight times, it is also the second time that the South Carolina women's basketball team and Staley have went undefeated heading into the last weekend of the tournament as they are currently 36-0. The major aspect she credits to the success and the win is “all about the players” and their “commitment” to the program as she mentioned to ESPN reporter Holly Rowe right after the game.
“It’s all about the players. It’s all about the players commitment,” Staley said per On3 Sports. “You saw we had so many players come in and out of the basketball game, so players have to sit a little bit longer than they usually do. But they all want to win for each other. So they sacrifice some of their personal goals to benefit for the greater good of our team. Nobody believed we would be in this place right here, except for them.”
The Gamecocks are looking to redeem themselves after losing to star Caitlin Clark and the Iowa women's basketball team in upsetting fashion in the national semi-finals last season. They were the top ranked team in the country last season during that time and the same still stands true.
Gamecocks “seasoned” bench propelled them to victory per Staley
In what propelled the South Carolina women's basketball team to victory was arguably the second unit or bench of the team, as they needed a boost in the third quarter where the team was only leading by four points at halftime and was 2-12 from deep. Staley said during the game to Rowe that with how “seasoned” the bench was, they were doing a good job of keeping the game on ice.
“They are a season to be able to come in and give us a boost no matter what,” Staley said. “I think they’re doing a great job, just exploiting some of the mismatches on their guards. It may not be mismatches as far as their zone and their man to man offense, but we’ve got going with other ways of scoring.”
Up next for the Gamecocks is North Carolina State in the Final Four as they just beat the University of Texas Sunday. If they get past them, they have a national championship game against three exciting teams with star players like Clark with Iowa, Angel Reese with LSU, and Paige Bueckers with UConn.
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