Dawn Staley stresses importance of South Carolina maintaining routine after LSU win

South Carolina earned its biggest win of the season to date Thursday night, rallying for a 76-70 road win over LSU in front of a raucous crowd. The Gamecocks didn’t spend much time celebrating, though.

Dawn Staley‘s squad was back to work early Friday afternoon, less than 12 hours after landing in Columbia.

Staley joined The Paul Finebaum Show on Friday and shared her message to her team after South Carolina’s huge win.

“We have to stay with our routine,” Dawn Staley said. “We didn’t get back home until I don’t know, maybe 1 o’clock. They probably didn’t wind down and get in the bed until about 2 or 3. And we got practice at 12:30. We practiced. Because we’re routine. It’s easy for us to just say, ‘Hey, we’re tired, let’s take the day off.’ No, we’re going to stay in our routine.”

South Carolina hosts Vanderbilt on Sunday at 3 p.m., looking to stay unbeaten on the season.

As the Gamecocks turned their attention to this weekend’s matchup with the Commodores, they didn’t go through a typical practice, but they did get some work in.

“It wasn’t one of our normal practices. We kept it short,” Staley said. “But we kept their attention, because we don’t want the Vandy game to be a trap game.”

South Carolina enters the Vanderbilt matchup with an 18-0 (6-0) record. The Commodores are 17-3 (4-2). The Gamecocks have played a difficult schedule to this point, with no game tougher than the one they played Thursday. Staley is proud of her team but not satisfied with where South Carolina is.

“We worked hard for where we are, and the league is a pretty tough league, whether you’re at home or whether you’re away,” Staley said. “But being home gives you a little bit of an advantage, because of the crowd that we’re drawing on each campus. So this game was huge. We had to get this game. We got the tiebreaker if we’re tied at the end of the regular season. It was great for our NET and the seeding in the NCAA Tournament. It was a great win overall, but overall, the game of women’s basketball won yesterday.”

Dawn Staley didn’t just speak about the game of women’s basketball being the real winner during her appearance with Finebaum.

In her postgame press conference following the win, she spoke about how she’s proud that women’s basketball is becoming more and more popular.

“Our game’s been held down and held back, and now, I don’t know if it’s the television package or the negotiations. I don’t know what it is. But I think what we are witnessing is something truly special,” Dawn Staley said. “The atmosphere here, I mean everything. I’ve never seen as many people in any plaza — for a regular season game, anyway.”