Dawn Staley addresses if South Carolina is an SEC dynasty

South Carolina wrapped up its eighth SEC regular season championship in 11 years under head coach Dawn Staley.

Staley went on record after winning her second national championship in 2022 saying that she isn’t ready to call South Carolina a dynasty despite making the Final Four in each of the last three seasons. The Gamecocks have more or less owned the SEC since the early 2010s. Despite these facts, Staley still isn’t budging on the dynasty conversation, even within the SEC. According to her, the Gamecocks are still chasing greatness.

“We’ve been pretty successful, like pretty successful,” Staley said postgame. “But I think Tennessee had a dynasty. I don’t know where we measure up to them. But unless we are doing things that they haven’t done consistently, you can’t really call it a dynasty especially because somebody else that reigns supreme in this conference.”

Tennessee was the standard of college basketball for decades under to guide of head coach Pat Summitt, who led the Lady Vols to an astounding 1,098-208 record over a 38-year period. During her tenure, Tennessee won eight NCAA championships to go with a combined 32 Southeastern Conference tournament and regular season championships.

Staley is in her 16th season as South Carolina women’s basketball coach and in that time has compiled a 428–106 record over that time. 58 of those (55%) losses came in Staley’s first four years as head coach. Since the 2012-13 season, the Gamecocks are averaging just four losses per season. They’ve lost nine games since the start of the decade, lost three in the past three seasons and are currently sitting at 26-0 and are poised to win their third national title under Staley if this trend continues.

While Staley has a long way to catch up to Pat Summitt — many believe South Carolina is already a dynasty based on the amount of championships (conference and national) that Staley has brought to Columbia. It’s one thing to compare the two, but to say the Gamecocks aren’t the most dominant women’s basketball program over the past three seasons would be a flat out lie.

The benchmark for a dynasty for many is three championship wins. If Staley’s squad can run the gauntlet in the NCAA Tournament, could she have a slightly different answer on the legacy of the program she has built? Probably not. But for anyone else it would be hard to argue against.