Everything Dawn Staley said ahead of South Carolina's matchup with Southern Cal

South Carolina head women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley spoke to the media on Thursday ahead of the team’s marquee matchup against Southern Cal, the first edition of the two program’s “The Real SC” series. Here’s everything she had to say.

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What are your thoughts on Southern Cal?

“It’s going to be a great game. They’re a little bit more battle-tested than we are, playing the schedule that they play. So, hopefully, the teams that we’ve played — and they have — have prepared us for them, as far as the type of offenses. Some of them are very similar. So, we got to play.”

Kaeli Wynn posted your reaction to her commitment. Was that you being surprised by her commitment, or just excited that she was committing?

“I mean, we’ve been waiting on Kaeli for over two months, right? That’s one. Two, the night before, when you’re in this whole recruiting thing… The night before, she was like, ‘Can we talk tomorrow?’ And I swear, I don’t like those ‘Can we talk tomorrow?’ (texts) because they don’t feel good. And it didn’t feel good. So, I’m like, ‘Can we talk tonight? Like, tell me tonight.’ And she was like, ‘No, we’re at a fundraiser with my team. So, I’ll call you tomorrow.’ And then, I put on our coaches thread, ‘She’s going to Stanford, y’all.’ I felt the energy in the text message.

“For real, I was really surprised. Like, I did not think she was coming. She just surprised me. And she went through (creative media producer) Jhalen (Wingate), which was pretty cool because I don’t even know how she got Jhalen’s number — probably to get the pictures after her official visit. But I did not (expect that). She surprised me on that one.

Did you know Kaeli Wynn’s mother (former Washington/Long Beach State head coach Jodi Wynn) through coaching before you started recruiting her?

“I didn’t; people on our staff knew her. Very great coach. So, I’m sure she’s going to add some stuff to the things that we want to do. She’s got really a good 1-3-1 zone that we’re going to pick her brain on.”

Can you share a little about Kelsi (Andrews)?

“I mean, big-skill big. She can shoot it. She’s very efficient in the paint. Good basketball mind. Comes from a great basketball AAU program; Raven (Johnson) and Ta’Niya Latson, they all came from the same program. So, you know we’re getting a really good player that’s used to playing great competition and used to winning.”

What was it about Southern Cal’s coaching style that attracted you to (assistant coach) Wendale (Farrow) in the first place?

“I talked to Wendale a few times on the road, and you never know when you’re going to need an assistant coach. And then, just highly recommended. He’s a young coach who… I mean, he’s a California guy. We basically put all our eggs in one basket, like, ‘This is the person that we want, so let’s go get him.’

“And then, if we got him on a plane to come, I knew we could get him just by being around us, being in this city. There’s something about the people here that makes people feel comfortable. He kept pushing it back, and I’m like, ‘No, let’s go. Let’s get on the plane. Let’s come. Just come for a day or whatever.’ And, once he left here, he said, ‘Give me the weekend.’ And then, he called me on a Sunday.

“Sometimes, when you’re making a big leap like that, you want to just make sure it’s right. I know he probably knew about us and our success. I did have to tell him that, ‘If you want to be a head coach, the two people that sat in your seat are head coaches now — and they’re men. Hopefully, that is a prelude to you getting your own program.'”

After studying film from the Clemson game, do you feel like they’ve learned from the pressure they were under?

“Well, what Clemson did was just take away transitions. And when you take away transitions, you have to be organized. We weren’t organized, and I will own that. Like, we weren’t getting in the things that we were familiar with. We kind of let our players play a little bit in freelance, and once you do that, it leads to bad shots. So, towards the end of the third quarter and into the fourth quarter, we just really got them into things that were familiar. So, we got expected shots. We could rebound those shots.

“And then, from a defensive standpoint, we just had a unit out there that just connected. Sometimes, you’re playing this unit, that unit; and then, you find one that really found its groove the way we want to play on both sides of the ball.”

Do you have a scouting report on Jazzy (Davidson) and Londynn Jones?

“I mean, great players. They can score in a lot of different ways in bunches. Very athletic and quick. There’s not going to be just one person to guard. We got to figure out how we create layers to our defense so they don’t get easy looks. The most important thing is to make them work for catches, make them work for good looks. And we got to be committed to that, as an overall team.”

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