Dawn Staley breaks down emotions surrounding national championship victory

Emotions were running high for South Carolina women’s head coach Dawn Staley both before and after the Gamecocks’ 87-75 national championship win over Iowa on Sunday. Seen overcome with emotion as she broke down in tears when ESPN’s Holly Rowe interviewed her after leading South Carolina to a perfect 38-0 season.

Sunday’s win represented Staley’s third national championship victory with the Gamecocks, but this one hit a little bit differently for the four-time Naismith Coach of the Year. Speaking after the game about what made the feelings of this year’s win more intense.

“Well it was emotional for me because of how it ended last year, I’ll leave that there,” Staley said after the game. “And I was emotional at the beginning of the game because I didn’t want what happened last year to happen this year. So I was handling things in real-time, not afterwards.”

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The Gamecocks were in pursuit of back-to-back national championships last season before falling to Iowa in the Final Four. Defeated 77-73 by the Hawkeyes following a 41-point performance from superstar Caitlin Clark.

Staley spoke in depth about last year’s NCAA Tournament loss ahead of this year’s rematch in the national championship, carrying the pain with her of not delivering her senior players with a national title to close out their college careers. As that same emotion and memory clearly worked in favor of the Gamecocks this season, getting revenge on last year’s postseason elimination.

Clark had 30 points in this year’s national championship matchup, but the Gamecocks slowed down the nation’s highest-scoring offense in a major way. Holding Iowa to just 75 points on 39.7% shooting from the field after averaging 91.4 points per game this season. Also dominating on the glass by out-rebounding the Hawkeyes 51-29.

Payback was clearly also on the mind of South Carolina senior center Kamilla Cardoso, who ended the championship game with 15 points and 17 rebounds to record her 16th double-double of the season. And while she wasn’t on last year’s team, true freshman Tessa Johnson also played a major role in South Carolina’s revenge tour, leading the team with a career-high 19 points off the bench on college basketball’s biggest stage.

Staley and her squad were clearly highly motivated this season, which showed not just in their emotions, but their impressive play throughout the year in what will go down as one of the most dominant seasons in women’s college basketball history.