Dawn Staley: Paige Bueckers narrative puts South Carolina at disadvantage, compares to Caitlin Clark

Dawn Staley had an interesting take on Paige Bueckers and the narrative that surrounds her in the context of women’s college basketball. The South Carolina head coach compared it to the Caitlin Clark effect from the last few years, before she went to the WNBA to continue her stardom and stellar play.

Basically, said narratives were the only talking point about women’s college basketball. That’s Staley’s argument and it overshadows her team and their accomplishments, putting them at a disadvantage.

“Well, I’m going to tread lightly with this,” Staley began. “Here’s the thing, sometimes we create these narratives about great players — Caitlin was one of them; Paige is one of them right now — and we tend to forget the narrative about what our kids have been able to do and going for their third in four years.

“So there’s a sentimental narrative about Paige. A great freakin’ player. Anybody would start their franchise with Paige because of her efficient way of playing, because she’s a winner, because she cerebrally just knows the game, just has an aura about her. And she’ll be the number one pick in the WNBA draft. And she’ll be an Olympian. She’ll be all those things.”

Staley then explained how Bueckers, in a similar way to Clark, puts South Carolina at a disadvantage. The good news is, the theory will be put to the test again when South Carolina plays UConn Sunday for the national title.

“But when you put a narrative out there, everybody sees that, and it puts us at a disadvantage, whether you want to believe so or not,” Staley said. “Officials see it. It’s all over TikTok. It’s all over SportsCenter. It’s all over all of that. And she’s a great player but just because you’re a great player doesn’t mean you need to win the national championship to legitimize it. Paige is legit. She was legit from the moment she stepped on this stage or prior to, in Minnesota. Her career is legendary. She will leave a legacy at UConn whether she wins one or not.

“I just want to put it out there. I can’t not address it because it’s happening. It happened to us last year. Everything was about Caitlin Clark and her legacy and her ability to win a national championship. Yet we were coming into this thing undefeated, doing something that’s unprecedented at the time, because it’s hard. It’s hard. We find ourselves back here in a similar situation.”

Staley is certainly not taking anything away from Bueckers or UConn. But she wants narratives to find some balance.

“I want the sentiments to be about our players and what our players have been able to do — equally, because there’s room to do both,” Staley said. “We can raise Paige up because she deserves that and raise our players up because they deserve that. And that’s not talked about enough. There’s room for it in our game.

“Room for Jose. Room for our game, for all of us to be covered. Let’s not choose a history, one’s history over another program’s history. Let’s not choose one player over another player’s history because we’re all creating history for our game.”