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Michael Voepel
COLUMBIA, S.C. — There’s all the time noise on recreation days. On a windy Sunday afternoon in January outdoors Colonial Life Area, visitors snarls in all instructions, followers wearing garnet and black kind lengthy strains, and laughter appears ever current.
Inside, nearer to tipoff, 18,000 Gamecock trustworthy — referred to as the G-Hive — deliver nonstop power, treating recreation day like a cross between a vacation social gathering and a live performance for his or her favourite band.
Welcome to South Carolina girls’s basketball.
For the opponent, the environment — to not point out the Gamecocks — could be overwhelming. On today, Oklahoma, one in every of eight ranked groups within the SEC, cannot discover any solutions. The Sooners, used to operating their opponents into the bottom with their quick tempo, lose by 41 factors. Gamecocks sophomore MiLaysia Fulwiley and freshman Joyce Edwards make spotlight reel performs; 5 SC gamers rating in double figures.
It was the 18th win of the season for South Carolina, which hosts UConn on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, ABC). After a 38-0 nationwide championship season final yr, the Gamecocks wish to run it again in 2025 — and to cement their repute as one of many high groups in all of school sports activities.
“They’re who all of us are when it comes to with the ability to construct the depth, the tradition they’ve, the group,” Oklahoma coach Jennie Baranczyk mentioned. “That is, proper now, the instance in girls’s basketball.”
However when coach Dawn Staley took over the Gamecocks in 2008, that they had been to the NCAA event simply twice within the earlier 17 seasons. After ending 10-18 and eleventh within the SEC in Staley’s first season, the Gamecocks had been 29-5 and league champions — with a visit to the NCAA event Candy 16 — in her sixth.
Early on in Columbia, Staley constructed this system’s expertise with regional recruits and its attendance with nearly tireless accessibility. She chatted with followers, in particular person and on social media, stopped in eating places for lunch and gave away recreation tickets, changing into the approachable face of her group, the college and town of Columbia.
What got here subsequent was even tougher: sustaining it. Staley has performed that, too. From 2014-15 by 2023-24, the Gamecocks went 319-35 total and 147-13 within the SEC. They received three NCAA titles, made one other three Closing 4 appearances, received eight SEC regular-season and event titles, led Division I in attendance yearly and produced two WNBA No. 1 draft picks in A’ja Wilson and Aliyah Boston.
South Carolina’s dominance has modified not solely this system and the SEC, however the stability of energy in girls’s faculty basketball. And the No. 4 Gamecocks, 23-2 total and 11-1 within the SEC, are as soon as once more a nationwide championship contender. UCLA and Texas, that are additionally within the combine for No. 1 seeds within the NCAA event, are the one groups to beat South Carolina this season.
“I simply got here right here eager to win, eager to be a sponge to all of it,” mentioned Wilson, a three-time WNBA MVP whose South Carolina profession from 2014 to 2018 helped launch the last decade of dominance. “To see the legacy and longevity of this program, the place it is going … that is what we had been constructed on, that is our tradition.”
Listed here are a few of the milestones, pivotal moments, triumphs and heartbreaks over the previous 10 seasons that helped South Carolina turn into the dynasty of girls’s faculty basketball.
April 16, 2014: A’ja Wilson declares she is staying house
A statue of Wilson was unveiled outdoors Colonial Life Area in 2021, and her No. 22 jersey was retired there earlier this month. She’s an NCAA champion with two WNBA titles and two Olympic gold medals. No participant has had extra influence on this system — all thanks to 2 weekly telephone calls that helped Staley land Wilson, the No. 1 recruit within the nation in 2014.
Wilson grew up in higher Columbia and attended Gamecock basketball camps. Her father, Roscoe Wilson, was a former basketball participant who had educated her and introduced her to Staley’s consideration. As Wilson blossomed right into a famous person recruit each program wished, Staley realized another person held the important thing to getting her to be a Gamecock.
“In each course of, it’s a must to discover that one that actually is aware of what is going on [on] contained in the recruit’s thoughts. And it was her mother, Eva, for A’ja,” Staley advised ESPN. “I often attempt to discuss to recruits as soon as per week. After which we added her mother as soon as per week.”
“Few have impacted girls’s basketball fairly like Daybreak Staley.” @GamecockWBB‘s Daybreak Staley is a legend within the recreation and a pioneer, whose legacy can have a long-lasting influence 👏 pic.twitter.com/zr61LvSmDj
— SEC Community (@SECNetwork) February 13, 2025
Eva Wilson advised Staley that her daughter was coping with dyslexia, one thing A’ja would open up about close to the tip of her faculty profession to assist encourage others. Staley advised Eva each useful resource could be out there to Wilson, and he or she could be there for her, too.
However because the time got here for Wilson to publicly announce her faculty selection, Staley and her workers weren’t positive of her resolution.
“We came upon like eight minutes earlier than she was occurring TV to say it,” South Carolina affiliate head coach Lisa Boyer advised ESPN. “She was closely recruited. We had been coping with UConn, with North Carolina, with Tennessee at that time.”
Tennessee teaching legend Pat Summitt had stepped down in 2012 due to early onset Alzheimer’s. North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell missed the 2013-14 season battling most cancers, whereas then-assistant Andrew Calder guided the Tar Heels to the Elite Eight, beating South Carolina within the Candy 16. Wilson made her resolution lower than a month later.
“I do not know what would have occurred if Pat and Coach Hatchell hadn’t been sick then, if that may have modified something,” Boyer mentioned. “However we did know the way sturdy a connection Daybreak had shaped with A’ja and her household.”
Wilson has had essentially the most influence on this system, however she wasn’t the primary foundational recruit for Staley. That was guard Tiffany Mitchell of Charlotte, North Carolina, who picked the Gamecocks in 2012.
“Tiffany dedicated to me and our program earlier than it was standard,” Staley mentioned. “She was one of many high gamers within the nation and selected us.”
Mitchell was the spark that lit South Carolina’s torch, and getting Wilson ensured the flame would not exit. Her success and recognition opened much more recruiting doorways nationwide for South Carolina, whereas her native roots additional endeared this system to followers.
Wilson has mentioned that Staley all the time understood the proper buttons to push and that her mom sensed that, too.
“Eva knew, simply from our conversations, what we would have liked and what A’ja wanted, and that it will be the proper match,” Staley mentioned. “It in all probability wouldn’t have labored out as fantastically if she wasn’t from right here. Like if she was the No. 1 recruit from the Midwest, or the Northeast or the West Coast or someplace? I do not suppose we might have this type of momentum that we have constructed from the time she walked on campus.”
March 29, 2015: Gamecocks attain their first Closing 4
The Gamecocks entered 2014-15 figuring out there was an enormous step to take.
The season earlier than, they received Staley’s first SEC regular-season title after which made the Candy 16. With standouts like Mitchell returning and Wilson becoming a member of them as a freshman, pleasure across the program had by no means been greater.
Mitchell, then a junior, realized South Carolina was on the verge of one thing a lot larger than she had dreamed when she selected the Gamecocks.
“I by no means knew committing would ignite such a change in this system,” Mitchell mentioned. “However I trusted Daybreak and he or she trusted me to assist change the narrative at South Carolina.”
In 2015, the Gamecocks went 15-1 within the SEC, their greatest report since becoming a member of the convention in 1991-92. They received the SEC event for the primary time, beating Tennessee — the league’s long-time standard-bearer — within the ultimate.
After cruising by the primary two rounds of the NCAA event, the Gamecocks met North Carolina within the Candy 16 for the second yr in a row. The regional, in Greensboro, North Carolina, was nearer to the Tar Heels’ campus, however by this level the touring social gathering with the Gamecocks was monumental.
South Carolina prevailed 67-65. The primary Closing 4 in program historical past was one win away. However with three minutes to play within the Gamecocks’ regional ultimate in opposition to Florida State, they trailed 67-65. Somebody needed to take over.
Mitchell did, with an help after which seven consecutive factors in an 80-74 win that despatched South Carolina to the nationwide semifinals in Tampa, Florida. The Gamecocks had been the newcomers in a Closing 4 the place the opposite three groups — Notre Dame, UConn and Maryland — all beforehand had received not less than one nationwide championship.
South Carolina misplaced 66-65 to Notre Dame within the semifinals. Wilson, who got here off the bench that season, led South Carolina with 20 factors and 9 rebounds.
For Staley, who went to a few Closing Fours as a participant at Virginia however by no means received a title, was disenchanted however resolute after her first journey as a coach.
“I advised our group that I hope they be aware of how exhausting it’s to get thus far and the way a lot work it took,” Staley mentioned after the loss. “We’re not far off. We simply need to proceed and get these experiences. If we ever get thus far once more, we will have completely different outcomes. I need us to have a sure starvation, a sure unhealthy style in our mouths from being so near competing for a nationwide championship that it’ll gasoline us.”
April 2, 2017: Mission achieved
Staley knew a key a part of the trail to the highest was staying current and never leaping forward. She mentioned her 2015-16 group needed to be taught that the exhausting method.
“That they had a style of the Closing 4. We had a fairly good group coming again, they usually simply did not recognize the method of getting again there,” she mentioned. “We had been drunk on our success. And though we had been good, I may nearly really feel the group shortchanging the method.”
A No. 1 seed within the 2016 NCAA event, South Carolina misplaced within the Candy 16 to Syracuse. Mitchell — her faculty profession over — was despondent within the locker room afterward.
Staley’s faculty profession had ended with a nationwide semifinal loss 25 years earlier. She went on to play professionally within the ABL and WNBA for 10 seasons, win three Olympic gold medals, be the US flag-bearer within the 2004 Athens Video games and was now a high-profile coach. However she knew how empty Mitchell felt.
“The massive losses drive me as a result of our gamers damage,” Staley mentioned. “Actually damage. And that hurts me, deeply.”
Staley funneled all that emotion into 2016-17. Wilson was a junior. High switch Allisha Gray — who had performed for North Carolina in opposition to South Carolina twice beforehand within the NCAA event — joined the Gamecocks. This time, Staley mentioned, she reminded the gamers to deal with each step: the regular-season title, the SEC event crown and every recreation of the NCAA event, which included a too-close-for-comfort 71-68 second-round win over Arizona State.
The regional was throughout the nation in Stockton, California, with Florida State the Elite Eight opponent. The Gamecocks received 71-64, then beat Stanford 62-53 within the semifinals in Dallas.
Nonetheless absorbing the actual fact that they had superior to their first nationwide championship recreation, Staley and her workers watched, as shocked as the remainder of the ladies’s basketball world, as Mississippi State ended UConn’s 111-game successful streak within the second semifinal.
South Carolina, which had already defeated the Bulldogs twice that season, did it once more within the ultimate. Staley grew to become the second Black head coach — Carolyn Peck at Purdue in 1999 was the primary — to win the NCAA girls’s basketball title.
Boyer mentioned the celebration on the Gamecocks’ resort that night time went into the wee hours. At about 3 a.m., after a lot of the well-wishers had left, two coaches remained.
“I simply turned to Daybreak and mentioned, ‘We lastly did it. What will we do now?'” Boyer recalled. “And she or he mentioned, ‘We have got to win one other one.'”
Feb. 10, 2020: Gamecocks clear the UConn hurdle
Staley had not less than one different huge ticket to punch: a victory over UConn. The applications’ first assembly was in December 2007, the season earlier than Staley took over at South Carolina, and UConn received by 58 factors. In Staley’s first seven video games in opposition to the Huskies, South Carolina misplaced by a median of 21.3 factors. The closest the Gamecocks received was an 11-point loss in 2017.
However Staley was dedicated to retaining the sequence going.
“Folks will shrink back from enjoying them, however for me, it was extra magnetic to play them,” Staley mentioned of the Huskies. “As a result of they had been the usual, and also you’re all the time measuring your self in opposition to them.
“It damage me once we used to lose by 20 factors. You modify issues up — one yr we tried to take the air out of the ball. You must discover ways to beat them.”
The Gamecocks’ celebrated freshman class of 2019-20, led by Aliyah Boston and nicknamed “The Freshies,” lastly cracked the UConn code. South Carolina received 70-52 behind 13 factors and 12 rebounds from Boston.
South Carolina then received the SEC event and was 32-1 and ranked No. 1 when the NCAA introduced the 2020 males’s and ladies’s basketball tournaments had been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In early Could, Staley had a milestone birthday: 50. Amid a lot uncertainty on this planet and an extension of her time as Olympic coach with the Tokyo Video games delayed to 2021, Staley mentioned she recommitted to her subsequent huge objective: getting the Freshies a nationwide championship.
April 3, 2022: After a crushing ending, the Freshies end the job
After main the nation in attendance the earlier six seasons, the Gamecocks needed to alter to largely empty arenas within the 2020-21 season because of COVID-19 restrictions. The 2021 NCAA event was performed in a bubble in San Antonio.
South Carolina, a No. 1 seed, received its second-round recreation over Oregon State on March 23. Two days later, Gamecocks assistant coach Jolette Regulation’s mom, who had been battling sickness, died in her hometown of Florence, South Carolina.
If Regulation left the bubble, she would not have the ability to return for the remainder of the event.
“It was the toughest, most painful time in my life,” Regulation mentioned. “After we received the SEC event, I went to the hospital and noticed my mom. We talked, listened to gospel music, she saved saying she was drained. However in your thoughts, you do not suppose your mother goes to die.”
Regulation requested Staley to not inform the gamers, hoping to not distract them.
“However once I did not present up at dinner, they wished to know why,” Regulation mentioned. “These children wrote letters to me, they usually made a video for me. I knew my mother would need me to remain and end this out with them.”
The Gamecocks superior to the nationwide semifinals in opposition to No. 1 seed Stanford. Boston’s putback on the buzzer bounced out, and South Carolina misplaced 66-65. Boston doubled over in tears, her response so uncooked even some Stanford gamers comforted her whereas their teammates had been celebrating.
“Aliyah, all our children, had been simply devastated. And I needed to go house and bury my mom,” Regulation mentioned. “However God mentioned, ‘For those who belief me, for those who lean on me, I will provide you with the energy to have the ability to do what you should do.'”
Simply because the gamers helped her cope with her private loss, Regulation mentioned she and the workers helped them cope with the sport loss. Having overcome her personal latest grief, Regulation had the angle to assist Boston cope with her heartbreak.
“She lastly began to recover from it that summer season,” Staley mentioned. “However then she needed to relive it, as a result of [the video] saved being plastered all over. So then we talked about, ‘The one factor to do to get previous it will be to return again and win the championship.'”
Boston adopted Wilson as a famous person publish recruit; that they had completely different personalities, however the same resolve. Boston spent the subsequent summer season bettering her food plan and energy. With a robust 2022 season, she was on her method to being the Nationwide Participant of the 12 months, and South Carolina had misplaced only one recreation because it headed into the 2022 SEC event.
It misplaced the SEC ultimate 64-62 to Kentucky on a 3-pointer with 4 seconds left. However that disappointment did not rattle Staley; she mentioned she thought it made the Gamecocks extra decided going into the NCAA event.
They confronted UConn — and coach Geno Auriemma, 11-0 in NCAA finals — for the title.
“There was plenty of speak about Geno being undefeated in nationwide championship video games. I used to be like, ‘Properly, I’m, too. I am 1-0,'” Staley mentioned, laughing.
That grew to become 2-0 in Minneapolis after a 64-49 victory, the second-fewest factors UConn had ever scored in an NCAA event recreation. The fewest (47) had come 30 years earlier.
Boston had 11 factors, 16 rebounds and two blocks. The picture of her from the 2021 semifinal loss had stayed together with her, not as failure however as gasoline.
“I do not need anybody to make use of a photograph of me crying ever once more,” Boston mentioned.
March 31, 2023: A full reset after an imperfect ending
Not like the 2021-22 season, Staley mentioned in 2023 that she did not suppose the Gamecocks wanted a loss to refocus. The Freshies had been now seniors able to ship South Carolina’s first good season. Every little thing pointed to it. Everybody anticipated it.
However the Gamecocks misplaced within the nationwide semifinals when Iowa’s Caitlin Clark scored 41 factors and led the Hawkeyes to a 77-73 upset.
Afterward, Staley was livid about many issues, together with the officiating and the truth that as the general No. 1 seed, South Carolina performed a Saturday-Monday regional schedule as a substitute of Friday-Sunday, which meant the Gamecocks received one fewer day of relaxation earlier than the Closing 4 than Iowa.
“With each loss, I fine-tooth-comb every thing,” Staley mentioned, including she later talked privately to the semifinal officers. “I received stuff off my chest. I mentioned one thing to all of them. I’ve mended these issues.”
5 Gamecocks seniors had been picked within the 2023 WNBA draft, led by No. 1 Boston. It was a troublesome summer season for Staley attempting to regulate to what she knew could be a really completely different form of group.
“I mentioned throughout that point, ‘I do not know the way for much longer I can do that,'” Staley mentioned.
Regulation and the remainder of the workers helped her transfer ahead.
“In the future, we had been sitting in her workplace, and he or she was identical to, ‘OK, guys, our season this yr goes to be a white, clean canvas. Give me your ideas,'” Regulation mentioned. “We simply went across the room, and it was nearly like just a little retreat. We began speaking about what we may do with that canvas. It was like respiration life again into her.”
That is when Staley accepted she could not deal with this group the identical as any earlier group.
“I’m a coach that may meet gamers the place they’re,” Staley mentioned. “I simply did not suppose I might ever need to go that far. I am OK with shifting 75% to their 25. However they took me to 90. The constant factor was they labored exhausting, however that they had enjoyable doing it. I assumed it was an excessive amount of enjoyable.
“Then I simply realized, ‘That is who they’re.’ You could possibly mess that up desirous about how regimented and disciplined you needed to be. We simply gave into it. We simply begin laughing with them typically.”
April 7, 2024: The proper ending
The Iowa loss was painful to consider and worse to rewatch. One picture stood out: South Carolina guard Raven Johnson dribbling, broad open, behind the 3-point arc, and Clark waving her off, as if to say, “Don’t be concerned, she’s not going to shoot it.”
South Carolina wanted extra perimeter capturing, and guard Te-Hina Paopao, a switch from Oregon, match the invoice. Johnson additionally labored on her capturing, getting ready for what she referred to as her revenge tour.
South Carolina made 163 3-pointers and shot 31% from behind the arc in 2022-23. That jumped to 253 and 39.5% in 2023-24. Johnson, who shot 24.1% (14 of 58) in 2022-23, improved to 35.0% (25 of 80). And Paopao led the best way with 87 3-pointers on 46.8% capturing from downtown.
Khadijah Classes, a Gamecocks participant from 2012 to ’16 and now one in every of South Carolina’s assistant coaches, mentioned Staley is all the time open to altering techniques.
“She adjusts with the occasions,” Classes mentioned. “She understood at the present time, it’s a must to shoot the three extra.”
The closest South Carolina got here to a loss final season was within the SEC event semifinals in opposition to Tennessee. Down 73-71 within the closing seconds, Staley put the sport within the palms of 6-foot-7 heart Kamilla Cardoso. Cardoso made the one 3-pointer of her faculty profession for a 74-73 victory.
On the Closing 4, the Gamecocks confronted Iowa once more, this time within the championship recreation. The demons from 2023 had been gone. South Carolina received 87-75, and Staley had her third NCAA title.
South Carolina grew to become the tenth Division I girls’s basketball group within the NCAA period to have an ideal season. UConn has performed it six occasions; South Carolina, Tennessee, Baylor and Texas as soon as.
“Going from the place we had been to the place we went,” Staley mentioned, smiling and shaking her head, “I nonetheless cannot consider it was that group that went undefeated.”
Ten months later, the Gamecocks are within the hunt for the 2025 title. In that 101-60 win over Oklahoma on Jan. 19, Paopao, who returned to South Carolina for a fifth season, was one of many 5 gamers to hit double figures. The efficiency showcased South Carolina’s depth, even after shedding junior ahead Ashlyn Watkins to an ACL damage in January. Seven South Carolina gamers common between 12.3 and seven.2 factors per recreation.
Regulation mentioned everybody doubtless assumes now it is simple to recruit to South Carolina due to all of the Gamecocks’ success.
“That is not the case in any respect, as a result of you have to recruit that a lot tougher,” Regulation mentioned. “Everyone else is saying, ‘Why would you wish to go there? They’re loaded. You are not wanted. Come right here and be the star.’
“We needed to change our method. We promote our tradition: Do you wish to be part of a dynasty, be amongst different girls which might be attempting to win championships?”
Staley thinks again to South Carolina’s first NCAA title in 2017, at a time when UConn had received the earlier 4 in a row and appeared invincible with its triple-digit successful streak.
“We gave all people else hope then,” Staley mentioned. “As a result of we weren’t fairly a powerhouse but. We had been nonetheless up-and-coming. So it was a win not only for us, however for the general recreation.”
Now the Gamecocks set the requirements they as soon as chased.
“If you’re profitable, there are direct correlations to your habits,” Staley mentioned. “If you’ve received one championship, you recognize what contributes to you getting one other one. After which one other. And also you simply attempt to preserve it going.”
