Dawn Staley highlights adjustments which helped South Carolina win vs. LSU

The South Carolina Gamecocks and LSU Tigers battled it out on Friday night, in one of the fiercer rivalries in women’s college basketball. And the Gamecocks came out on top with a 66-56 victory. Second-ranked South Carolina stretched their lead into the third quarter, and they were never threatened down the stretch, as the Gamecocks prevailed in a battle of two top five teams. South Carolina handed LSU their first loss of the season, and following the game, head coach Dawn Staley spoke with Elle Duncan of ESPN.

LSU averages 90 points per game. The Gamecocks limited them to just 56 points, one of their worst shooting nights of the Kim Mulkey era. What was the part of her team on Friday night that impressed her the most?

“I mean, I thought they made big plays. Defensively, I thought we were just connected. I don’t think we were connected in the first quarter. But I think when we adjusted. We made some adjustments in the second quarter and at halftime to just limit the amount of easy buckets that they were getting in the first quarter,” Staley explained.

“We tried to eliminate easy buckets in transition. We turned the ball over. They scored on us. They were getting offensive rebounds. So, we just had to clean a little bit up. Not the rebounding part but we certainly cleaned up. Just being able to defend. Being able to disrupt. That’s the name of the game when you can’t put 70 points on the scoreboard,” Staley continued.

South Carolina certainly had no problems dominating on the defensive end. They finished with 11 blocks, their highest total for the 2024-2025 season. Did she wake up knowing her team was going to play angry?

“I actually didn’t know what team was gonna show up. Sometimes the cadence of not playing your normal Thursday/Sunday. Having it delayed until Friday. It messes with you a little bit. We had one extra day that I really didn’t want. Because we were amped up to play on Thursday. But this crowd showed up. This crowd poured into our team and we fed off the energy in this building. And I think it was great for women’s basketball,” Staley continued.

The Gamecocks have now won 69 straight games at Colonial Life Arena. That streak ties the Pat Summitt teams with the Tennessee Volunteers in the early 90s. What does that mean for her team to know that they’ve been perfect at home for the last five years?

“It just means that we didn’t really know what national championship attendance looked like. We knew what the basketball part was. The way the community here in Columbia, South Carolina has embraced our team and they’ve poured into our team. And they’ve poured into our team in such a way that they don’t like us losing,” Staley continued.

Staley knows their home crowd has high standards

“They don’t like us losing here or on the road. But certainly, we’ve made women’s basketball look like what it’s supposed to look like. When you pour into our local media, our communities, and we mommed and popped it. It wasn’t like we’re giving out free t-shirts every night. This community. The people that come to our games. We know them on a personal level and we love them. We support them. Because they support us in a big way, financially here in Colonial Life Arena as well as we do travel well as well,” Staley finished.

South Carolina improved to 19-1 overall and 7-0 in the SEC. LSU dropped to 20-1 overall and 5-1 in the SEC.