South Carolina soars into Final Four
GREENVILLE, S.C. — While wearing the champions’ hat, with blue and red confetti sticking to her Louis Vuitton jump suit, Dawn Staley took the microphone and flexed some muscle.
More than being the head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks, she is the 5-foot-6 giant of the women’s college game. During news conferences, she’s asked for her insight beyond basketball - Your thoughts on the women possibly getting their own television rights deal, Dawn? … Your opinion about the diversity of the coaches in this tournament? Then during commercial breaks, she’s the celebrity co-star pitching supplemental insurance alongside Mike Krzyzewski.
She has transcended her sport. So when Staley speaks, as she did after her No. 1 Gamecocks outlasted Maryland in a physical Elite Eight matchup, winning 86-75, she does so with intent.
“To our wonderful, to our loud fans. This is what an arena is supposed to sound like,” Staley said Monday night, playing to the heavy Gamecocks crowd inside the Bon Secours Wellness Arena. “I hope we can host this every year.”
She meant that as more than a suggestion. But as the architect of the latest dynasty in women’s hoops, now making its third consecutive Final Four trip, Staley may just make the game bend to her wishes.
Women’s college basketball has a new capital, all because of Staley. This will be her program’s fifth Final Four appearance in the last eight tournaments, and when Staley climbs the ladder to cut down the nets, she has to follow a certain protocol. South Carolina has done this so often, she knows the angles she must smile toward to appease the program’s photographers.
“We’ve got a choreographer to make sure they get the right pictures,” Staley said.
The stars, role players and little-known players of South Carolina, too, have plenty of pieces of nylon for their treasure chests. And although college coaches now must re-recruit their own players to keep them in house and away from the transfer portal, the four seniors in the Gamecocks’ starting lineup (Aliyah Boston, Zia Cooke, Brea Beal and Victaria Saxton) have remained in Columbia, S.C., since their baby-faced freshmen days.
They’ve stayed because they win in South Carolina. They’ve stayed because of her.
“She was fly way before we got here, so let’s get that straight,” Cooke once said about Staley’s sideline attire. “Coach is the GOAT when it comes to putting that . . . on. She knows what she’s doing.”
On Monday night, it wasn’t as though her Gamecocks played as sharp as Staley dresses. Early on, they did not perform up to the expectations of a top-seeded, undefeated team. They left way too many layups on the floor and not in the rim, and this casual offense showed in the box score: only 33.3 percent shooting through the first quarter. So, no. They were not clean. The problem for Maryland, however, was that Gamecocks were relentless.
They came at Maryland like boulders cascading down a hill. When they missed all those layups, they cemented themselves in the lane, ready to snatch down the offensive rebound. Though Terps players reached for the same bouncing ball, they often left the paint empty-handed, as South Carolina pulled down an unfathomable number of 25 offensive boards. With their size advantage, the Gamecocks preferred to play inside-out. But against defensive zone looks, Beal and Cooke searched for and made opportunistic three-pointers.
And the Terrapins had to stand there and take it. Or try by any means to stop it.
Although Maryland players played big at times early in the game - 6-foot-1 backup guard Lavender Briggs blocking the 6-7 Kamilla Cardoso from behind, then Abby Meyers similarly stuffing South Carolina’s Laeticia Amihere - their aggressive efforts would soon catch the attention of the officials.
As South Carolina kept coming, the Terps could only foul to stop the torrent. Sophomore guard Shyanne Sellers, called for an offensive foul, had to take a seat with two fouls with 9:01 to play in the half. Less than 30 seconds later, senior Diamond Miller, after committing her second, joined Sellers on the sideline. Before the halfway mark of the second quarter, the Terps already had six team fouls. And by the end of the game, their frustration about it still simmered.
Responding to a question about South Carolina’s physicality, Miller said, “It’s funny how you say that when all the fouls were going one way, I felt like.”
Meyers, sitting next to her teammate during the postgame news conference, caught on to Miller’s vibe and added her own touch of sarcasm: “So we were the more physical team, apparently.”
“Yeah,” Miller said, taking back over. “So we were really physical because apparently they were getting all the foul calls. That just shows we have heart, we have grit, and just because they’re taller doesn’t mean we can’t bang. If y’all didn’t see that we were banging today, I don’t know what could show you that. Yeah, clearly we needed to be more physical, I guess, on the offensive side because every time they hit us, nothing was called.”