Dawn Staley’s Strong Message After Unfortunate South Carolina News
Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks are going dancing once again after the 2025 women’s NCAA Tournament was revealed on Sunday night. South Carolina will be eyeing a second-straight national championship and a fifth-straight Final Four appearance.
The Gamecocks were given the No. 1 seed in the Birmingham 2 region after going 30-3 on the season and cruising through the SEC Tournament. However, the selection committee gave the UCLA Bruins (30-2) the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament.
A reason the committee may have leaned in UCLA’s favor is due to the battle between them and South Carolina in November. The Bruins handed the Gamecocks their first loss of the season with a final score of 77-62.
Shortly after the full bracket was announced, Staley shared her displeasure with South Carolina not receiving the No. 1 overall seed. The three-time NCAA women’s basketball champion believes that her team set a schedule strong enough to have earned the top seed.
“I mean, obviously, it’s disappointing,” Staley said. “It really is. To get some feedback on how they came to that conclusion because we put together and manufactured a schedule that, if done right, it should produce the overall No. 1 seed. But I will say this: we are going to make adjustments to our schedule in the future… If that’s the standard, then we can play any schedule and get the No. 1 seed.”
Despite Staley and South Carolina facing 15 top 25 teams this season compared to UCLA’s 12, the Big Ten did have 12 teams selected into the field of 68, a new record compared to the SEC’s ten.
The Gamecocks will face No. 16 seed Tennessee Tech on Friday at 4:00 p.m. ET in Columbia, S.C.
Dawn Staley Expresses SEC Awards Shock Amid ‘South Carolina Fatigue’
South Carolina Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley revealed why she was “shocked” about her team’s SEC Awards recognition.
During a February 11 episode of The Carolina Calls Show (two days after her team lost to the Texas Longhorns) South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley expressed frustration about how the women’s college basketball world reacts when her team comes up short.
“Any time we lose, it elevates everybody else. When we win, it’s par for the course. That’s part of it. Like, I think there is some South Carolina fatigue around, around women’s basketball. But I mean, I’m okay with it,” Staley said on the show, per an X post from The State Newspaper’s Michael Sauls.
Fast forward a few weeks and the Gamecocks had five players recognized when the annual SEC Awards were announced on March 4.
The Gamecocks’ award winners were MiLaysia Fulwiley getting SEC Sixth Woman of the Year and All-SEC Second Team recognition, Te-Hina Paopao was also an All-SEC Second Team honoree, freshman Joyce Edwards made both the All-SEC First Team and the SEC All-Freshman team, and Raven Johnson and Sania Feagin were included on the SEC All-Defensive Team.
The SEC’s head coaches vote for these various awards. And when Staley spoke with the media after her team’s practice on March 5, she showed surprise about the love these coaches showed her program.
“I’m pretty happy that… a lot of our kids got recognition,” Staley said of the SEC Awards, per an X post from Matt Dowell. “I was quite shocked at, shocked, because when we’ve had our best teams, we weren’t in the number in that regard.
“So kudos to the coaches who voted for our players, even when there’s a little South Carolina fatigue,” she added.
Staley seemingly isn’t taking this award recognition to mean her peers and opponents have woken up from this supposed “South Carolina fatigue”.
