Dawn Staley admits she had to address her 'PTSD' in real time in National Championship

After being eliminated by Iowa in last year’s Final Four, the South Carolina Gamecocks got redemption this season in the national championship game. Defeating the Hawkeyes 87-75 to complete their undefeated season and their revenge tour in dominant fashion.

There’s no question that the Gamecocks were highly motivated given last season’s postseason elimination by the Hawkeyes. But after the game, head coach Dawn Staley admitted that all of the emotions that came from last year’s game weren’t necessarily positive in this season’s rematch.

“Well, it was emotional for me because of how it ended last year. I’ll leave that there,” Staley said. “And I was emotional at the beginning of the game because I didn’t want what happened last year to happen this year. So I was handling things in real time, not afterwards.”

“I’m going to move to handling things in real time and not having to wait until there’s an ending that shouldn’t be. I was like that throughout the entire season, but for this one I wasn’t going to allow what I felt happened to us last year to happen this year. So I had a little bit of PTSD and I addressed it in real time,” Staley admitted.

Iowa stopping South Carolina in their tracks as they pursued back-to-back national championships clearly stayed with Staley. Haunted by a 77-73 loss where Hawkeye’s star Caitlin Clark dropped 41 points on the Gamecocks. As Staley continued to elaborate on the struggles that came with last season’s disappointing loss.

“I mean, it’s heavy, it’s heavy. You carry the burden of every single one of your players, all the coaches, and staff members that put so much into our team. And it’s a heavy load to be undefeated, to finish the job. And you get emotional because you just want that for them, and you’re happy that you’re able to — because only one team wins the national championship,” Staley explained. “And when you win a national championship, there’s more trust that’s built that you can take into the summer workouts and the postseason workouts and in the fall and into another season.”

Staley’s dedication to her craft is evident in her words, taking home her third national championship this season along with her fourth Naismith Coach of the Year Award after becoming just one of nine head coaches to lead a squad to an undefeated, national championship season in the men’s and women’s game. And while elite performances from her players on the biggest stages have headlined South Carolina’s dominance, so much more goes to their winning ways.

“There are so many conversations you have with parents, with any significant person in our players’ lives, that the rigors of the season, you just have to face that music with them. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s challenging. Sometimes it’s just a really hard conversation,” Staley said. “Then once you win, this is the reason why. It builds trust amongst everybody that’s involved in our players’ lives.”

Staley has become the face of South Carolina basketball and even women’s college basketball as a whole to an extent. But in their latest redemptive national title win and through it all she’s always made sure to give credit where it’s due, from assistant coach Winston Gandy on his recent game plan versus the Hawkeyes to their practice players who also get rings when the Gamecocks’ take home titles.

“And I’m just super happy for our staff. They work really hard. They are incredible basketball — I think they’re savants,” Staley said. “I think they are always looking for ways in which to get our players better in a way that they can handle it, not in the way we see it, because the way we see it is probably — the way we would handle it would be difficult for them to actually learn and apply and execute in a basketball sense. So we’re able to just kind of speak their vernacular and them actually deliver. So all of that makes it emotional for me.”

It’s clear South Carolina’s win over Iowa was special to Staley and the Gamecocks for many reasons. But it’s also apparent that overall something special is happening in Columbia with their women’s basketball program, a program that will seemingly be always primed for success with Staley at the helm.