Why this might be Dawn Staley's best coaching yet at South Carolina

Now this feels familiar.

Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks are the No. 1 overall seed heading into the women’s NCAA tournament for the second consecutive season. They enter March Madness undefeated — for the second year in a row — and at 32-0 are the only remaining unbeaten Division I team in men’s or women’s college hoops. They are once again the betting favorite to win the championship.

How they got here is a different story entirely, and it just might help the Gamecocks win their third title in seven NCAA tournaments.

Several women’s teams have been championship contenders in successive seasons, with star players leading the way. Think Chamique Holdsclaw (Tennessee Lady Vols, 1996-1998), Diana Taurasi (UConn Huskies 2002-2004), Candace Parker (Tennessee 2007-08), Maya Moore and Tina Charles (UConn 2009-10) and Breanna Stewart (UConn 2013-2016).

South Carolina is back on top this season after losing five starters, including 2023 WNBA No. 1 draft pick Aliyah Boston, and a top reserve from last year’s team. How did the Gamecocks reload? Call it strategic planning by Staley, along with her ability to convince players to buy into future roles. That’s harder to do in today’s transfer portal world, where many players seek immediate individual success.

But Staley did it, and several players who accepted taking a back seat last season, are now driving the Gamecocks.

“This whole season has been learning lessons through winning,” Staley said at the SEC tournament, where South Carolina won its eighth title. “We won a lot of basketball games, but there were a lot of things that we need to work on. This team has responded time in and time out.”

The roadmap to getting a No. 1 seed for the fourth season in a row started well before South Carolina fell to Iowa in last season’s national semifinals. That was an emotionally difficult loss for a program that had seemed so likely to repeat its 2022 national championship. With players such as Boston, Zia Cooke, Brea Beal, Victaria Saxton, Kierra Fletcher and Laeticia Amihere moving on, the Gamecocks lost the majority of their of experience and leadership.

Staley recruited in preparation for this. She knew there were talented younger players in place for 2023-24. She also got the perfect fit that South Carolina needed from the transfer portal: Guard Te-Hina Paopao added more 3-point shooting consistency, which had been an Achilles’ heel in the loss to Iowa.

Yet even with so many of the correct pieces, South Carolina still had to live up to the challenge of being the powerhouse everyone expects. Over the summer, Staley had moments of doubt.

“Considering what it looked like in June … like, early retirement,” Staley said during College GameDay’s visit to South Carolina on Feb. 18. “I was considering it. Seriously. Our team, where they were … they really weren’t in a good place. We lacked leadership. We lacked conditioning. We lacked discipline. But once you start forming your habits, they picked up on them fairly quickly.

“For the returners, they understood, but they were in a new situation themselves because they were the ones that were the examples for others. Now, they’re the leaders.”

Among South Carolina’s top eight scorers this season, only three were in that position last year. The 2022-23 roles were much smaller for center Kamilla Cardoso, forward Ashlyn Watkins and guard Bree Hall: None of them started or averaged more than 19 minutes a game last season.

Now, Cardoso (14.0 PPG) and Hall (9.7 PPG) are starters, and Watkins (9.7 PPG) plays the most minutes among the reserves. Guard Raven Johnson (8.1 PPG, 4.9 APG) and forward Chloe Kitts (9.2 PPG, 6.0 RPG), both sophomores, have moved into starting roles. Paopao, who spent the previous three years at Oregon, came in as a starter.

Led by Paopao’s 73 3-pointers as part of her 11.1 PPG average, the Gamecocks have made 207 shots from behind the arc thus far, vs. 163 last year.

The Gamecocks — who were sixth in the AP preseason Top 25 but took over No. 1 by the season’s second poll — also have a strong freshmen class led by guards Milaysia Fulwiley (11.8 PPG) and Tessa Johnson (5.9 PPG).

“I’m super proud of our youngsters,” Staley said after the SEC tournament final victory over LSU. “Their experience is a little bit different than when some of our experienced players were youngsters. They have to play for us.

“If you asked them if they saw themselves playing how they’re playing today like three or four months ago, before the season, I’m sure they would say no. Their heads were spinning about the pace of play, about how we implement offenses and defenses, just the pace of what we need to learn. It took them a while to actually acclimate to that. They put in a lot of work to get to where they are.”

The Gamecocks haven’t lost a home game at Colonial Life Arena, where they will play the NCAA tournament early rounds, since December 2020. They haven’t lost before the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament since 2013.

The closest they’ve come to losing this season came in the SEC tournament semifinals, when Cardoso’s last-second, banked-in 3-pointer beat Tennessee 74-73. But even in that pressure-cooker, Staley was calm. The Gamecocks have proven themselves to their toughest critic.

“I felt it took a little longer than we wanted,” Staley said about the concern she had during the off-season. “But if I knew it was going to turn out like this, I probably wouldn’t have been as mad.”

Does the 2023 Final Four loss to Iowa still haunt the Gamecocks? Not as much as it seems to motivate those who experienced it.

For the Gamecocks who didn’t play in that game, they are totally in the moment in 2024. For the Gamecocks who did experience that heartbreak, this season has been about seeking a kind of redemption.

“I think all of us have flashbacks of last year,” Johnson said. “We definitely don’t want to lose. We want to keep winning.”