South Carolina women's basketball: What Dawn Staley said at SEC Media Day
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SEC women’s basketball media day was Thursday. Dawn Staley, Bree Hall, and Te-Hina Paopao represented the Gamecocks. In addition to the podium, they also appeared on the SEC Network. I’ve mixed the two sessions so that answers on the same topic are together. Some answers have also been shortened to reduce redundancy and make it easier to read.
After the first official practice of the season, Staley said the past four years were “expect the expected,” This season, she said, will be “expect the unexpected.” She further explained what that means.
“When you come into a season where there’s a whole new starting five that will be on the floor that have never played together,” she said. “This team is working extremely hard. They don’t want to work from the past because the past really is the past. They’re never going to come back and log any minutes for our team. This team that we have, they are getting better every single day. I think it’s hard for Breezy to make the transition of maybe getting in every third, every third rep, (and) now she’s got all the reps that she must take in practice and that’s a build-up to what she’s going to have to do when the games start. That’s a process but she knows. I think it’ll be putting on an old shoe once she gets out there to play. The preparation’s a little bit different because you have to be on every single possession, not coming in from the bench, she’s gonna start. She’s got to be on. You have to practice those processes as a player and now that she’s a junior she knows what we want. It’s just getting her the experience to do it night in and night out.”
For the first time in three seasons, South Carolina is not the preseason no. 1 team. Staley downplayed the relevance of preseason rankings, but also said it is motivation.
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“I mean, I approach it the same way whether we’re 1, 10, 12, not ranked,” she said. “It’s just a prediction. It really is a prediction by people who I hope they study the game. I mean, it’s not a rebuild. It’s not a rebuild for us because we’re very talented. Like, we got talent on our team. We just lack a little bit of game-day experience. I mean, half of our roster have played some high-level basketball. We just have to up their experience. We have to create that, assimilate that in practices so when the games come, it’s more natural for them. We could not put them in a better situation because of the players that we had in place. We would have liked to experience some of them having a little bit more experience, being in a starting lineup, but they couldn’t break into it. I’m excited. Like, I’m excited for this team. We’re in a position where we’re in the hunted, we’re hunting. That’s not a bad place to be.”
Staley emphasized the hunters versus hunted metaphor.
“We’ve had it for a very long time,” Staley said. “Now do we want to share it? No we don’t want to share it. We want to be at the top. But we’ll do it from being the hunters rather than the hunted. And we’ve been in both positions before. I like being the one that’s hunting because it’s a different vantage point. LSU has the national throne and I’m sure there’s some other teams out there that will be in front of us on paper, but I think when it’s all said and done, our players are gonna rise to the challenge.”
Staley had an eventful few days leading up to Media Day in Birmingham. She attended the WNBA Finals in New York on Sunday, threw out the first pitch in Philadelphia on Monday, and was back in Brooklyn sitting courtside to see A’ja Wilson and Alaina Coates win the WNBA championship on Wednesday night.
“Anytime you can break into a Major League Baseball Playoff game and they think to bring in a women’s basketball coach, I think it’s truly special,” Staley said. “I think people are recognizing the power of our game and the people that are in our game. That’s cool. To be in the WNBA finals, I got a chance to go to Game 3 and Game 4 because I never got a chance to see any of our players play in the Finals. We had a break in the schedule for me to do that. Our people at South Carolina allowed me to get there and back, to come here today. I think it’s really important that we’re present in our players’ lives. They’ve given so much to our universities, our athletic departments, our programs. If they’re in that position, and you don’t get in that position very often, to be in the WNBA Finals, we should be present. But to be there to see Alaina Coates get her WNBA championship, to see A’ja win a WNBA championship, it’s surreal. That’s what you want. It’s your kids that are able to check off a goal in life, and you’re there, you’re seeing it happen in real time. That’s a pretty cool experience.”
Staley went viral Wednesday night for a clip where she celebrated a Wilson basket with some intense and probably not safe for work cheering. Even players from other programs were impressed by Staley’s continued support of her former players.
“I think a lot of people don’t know, players, they go through things and they talk to people that they feel like can give them the real,” Staley said. “I just checked in on A’ja before the game. It was like 3:00. I’m like, ‘You good?’ Because I know how she gets amped up for games. I know that sometimes she wants to win so bad that it could throw her off a little bit because she can come out and play too fast. I just want to make sure that she was good. And I did text Alaina – I call her Big Girl – I said just be ready. Be ready to defend. Be ready to use some fouls. She says she’s good. So I just want to make sure they’re in a good place, that they’re not worried about who’s not suiting up. Don’t worry about who’s not suiting up. The players that are suiting up can get it done.”
Staley talked about the progress the newcomers have made since arriving on campus this summer.
“They all look like freshmen,” she said. “Some of them look great at times, then other times they look like a penny with a hole in it. But that’s their process. I will start with MiLaysia Fulwiley. I think she’s a generational talent, I do. Generational to me is being able to do things that no other people can do. Like, she does things that I haven’t seen a woman’s basketball player do. The moves she makes, the shiftiness, ability to shoot the long ball, get to the basket at will. She’s very coachable. She wants to be great. We have to teach her greatness is a process, working on it daily. She really understands that. She’s taken a liking to that. Tessa Johnson, she can flat-out shoot the basketball. She can flat-out shoot. The rest of her is trying to rid herself of her high school ways ’cause the pace is quicker. Her passes are slower. They’re high school mode. We always say high school dropout, high school dropout. We want you to drop those high school habits. But that’s a process for her. I do think Tessa needs to be a little bit more selfish in scoring the basketball because she can do that. Some of her best defense is going to be her ability to put the ball in the hole. Who else do we have? Sahnya Jah. Athletically gifted. Elite athlete. Unafraid to mix it up. Great offensive rebounder. Great defender. Willing to mix it up. So she’s going to make me play her. Like, she’s going to make me play her by how she approaches practice every day. Sakima is 6’6″, and utilizes her height in a great way. Really has a great understanding of how we want to play. Like, if we give an instruction of how we want to play, plays it to a T. That’s what you want. Very, very coachable. Great understanding of the game. Should help us. We only have 11 players, so everybody’s going to get an opportunity to play.”
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Staley was also specifically asked about Paopao.
“I watched her during the recruiting process, although we didn’t recruit her, I watched. I’ve seen her,” Staley said. “Then we watched her when she went into the transfer portal. We watched her games, her clips. Without a doubt she can score the basketball. My question mark was will she be a willing defender. That was my question mark when we decided to get in the race of recruiting her. We saw some of the things that she needed for where she’s trying to go. I sat in front of 16,000 people watching the Aces and the Liberty. That game came down to defense, came down to defense. You’re going to have to play it at our level. If you’re going to go to the next level, you’re going to have to have a high-level commitment to it. She’s committed to it. I mean, she’s come a long way. When she sticks her nose in there, she takes charges. She’s playing angles a lot better. I mean, she’s a willing participant in giving it up on the defensive side of the ball. I mean, nothing really surprises me. What we recruited her for and to be, she’s been that. She’s got a great voice, a great command of our basketball team. I mean, she and Raven (Johnson) play off each other extremely well. I think they work well together. They can work well independent of each other. Both of them will be lead guards for us. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever had two, like, lead guards of this caliber on our basketball team in all of my years of coaching.
Paopao was succinct when asked what she brings to the Gamecocks: “My shooting ability.” She said her role is to shoot and set up her teammates for success, but what drew her to South Carolina was the chance to get better.
“I needed to be challenged and just wanted to be ready to go pro in the W,” Paopao said. “Coach Staley has brought me the opportunity to do that.”
Bree Hall was asked about the opportunity she now has as one of the veterans on an inexperienced team.
“Honestly like my game has grown so much,” Hall said. “Honestly like I think I’ve grown as a person and also as a player. I think my leadership skills really improved. And I knew at the end of the season last year that that was going to be a big thing, coming in and just having to lead the team. I might not be the most vocal. I’m also very big on just leading by example. On the court too I’ve really grown and grown my confidence as well, and my shooting capability’s gotten a lot better too.”
Hall credited the Freshies for teaching her how to be a leader the past two seasons. She said she still talks to them for advice.
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“Honestly, I think, having somebody like Aliyah Boston, Zia, Brea Beal, V, like all of them, just always being in my ear throughout the season,” Hall said. “They were there for me throughout the season and letting me know like, you know, this is gonna be essentially your team next year and you got to be able to step up. And I think Aliyah has really helped me. I’m constantly talking to Aliyah, I’d say probably every single day. I’m calling her. I actually asked her to help me prepare for this, specifically. She said just to relax because I do tend to talk fast. So I’m trying my best right now to talk slowly. She also told me to just have fun. It’s a great experience.”
One of the players South Carolina needs to rise to the challenge is Kamilla Cardoso. She is no longer the complimentary player to Boston, Cardoso has to take charge. Staley likes what she has seen in practice.
“Every day in practice you hear her voice,” Staley said. ”She is the person that if we can hear her we know what type of practice is going to be. For the past couple of weeks it has been her and then everybody else is just following along. When you have someone who’s going to be as dominant as she is taking the leadership charge and communicating and Kamilla is very funny. She’s super funny, and her accent adds to her funniness. But she’s very serious because she did like the bitter taste that was left in her mouth and the mouths of her players by losing in the Final Four last year.
Staley expanded on Cardoso’s growth.
“You didn’t hear her in the past two years that she’s been with us,” she said. “She’s communicative, she’s energetic. I think she’s playing with a zest of wanting to dominate. That’s what we want. We want you to understand that. Domination is a process that everybody has to go through it if that’s what they want. You do have to want it. Like, we see her stature, we see her presence, her ability, but until she takes that step of wanting it, that’s when it happens. That’s what she wants. She’s very, very competitive. Didn’t say a whole lot, but now she’s saying a whole lot because there’s a big void left with our graduation of last year’s team. That’s what you want to see. You don’t want to force them to do it. She knows who’s next up. Now she’s embracing that role for us.”
Iowa recently set an attendance record when over 55,000 fans watched an exhibition game. Last year’s championship game demolished old viewership records, and season tickets are sold out at multiple programs. Staley was asked if this is the golden era of women’s basketball.
“I think it’s bittersweet. I think we missed a big portion of it. I think now we’re in a place where there’s not enough network competition to display everything that our game is giving us. The players are better, coaching is better. There are more stories to be told. There’s just not enough outlets for us to do that. But we’re in a place where we’re busting at the seams. We need more places to televise our games. We need more places to storytell about our game. It’s a good thing, but I just don’t want us to miss out on any more opportunities for us to continue to expand.”
Staley also made a pitch for South Carolina’s 16 for 16 campaign to sell 16,000 season tickets.
“The cupboards aren’t bare we’re very, very talented. We just lack a little bit of game-day experience,” Staley said. “We’ll build up to that, but I know our FAMs are excited. This is my 16th year at South Carolina. So we’ve got a drive for 16,000 season ticket holders. I think we’re going to do it because we got some competition out there that is talking some big noise. So we want to make sure that we are always number one in attendance. So that’s what we’re aiming for.”
