South Carolina women's basketball: Everything Dawn Staley said to preview TCU game
South Carolina head women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley spoke to the media on Friday to preview the team’s upcoming game against No. 9 TCU. Here’s everything she had to say.
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On what Staley took away from the Gamecocks’ win over Duke
“It was a good win. For long stretches, I thought we really were focused on the game plan, and then, there were stretches where we fell off the wagon. We’re just learning – we’re really learning. They’re really trying to concentrate on those spaces in which we just aren’t locked in because teams get back in the game, and teams get into our lead; or, if we had a lead, then we are digging ourselves a bigger hole. So, (it was a) great learning opportunity.”
On scouting TCU and Hailey Van Lith
“Well, we know Hailey (Van Lith), for one. (We) played against her when she was at Louisville, played against when she was at LSU. She’s more, like, in the Louisville – she’s in that mode to where she’s calling on to do a lot of things for their basketball team, so you got to go back and look at the Louisville scout and see the types of things that we did to have an impact on her inability to to get clean looks. I mean, they’re all very good experienced transfers, so we got to take them for what we’ve seen them doing in TCU’s system.”
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On whether South Carolina’s matchup with TCU is a home-and-home or a one-off
“(It’s a) one-off – so, neutral site.”
On how similar South Carolina’s game plan against TCU is to that against UCLA
“(It’s) probably very different in that (we’ll) probably play some zone. I mean, there’s the bigs – you got to chop bigs down. You got to make them work for every catch, every touch over a 40-minute period. Our depth really has to have an impact on this particular game, so we’ll concentrate on doing that. But know that they have much more than Sedona Prince.”
On what Staley has seen from Raven Johnson after her slow start
“I mean, Ray’s (Raven Johnson) figuring it out – she really is. And we have patience for her growth. We have patience for her to keep defenses at bay. We want her to score, look for more scoring opportunities. She’s been doing that, and she’s been hitting a lot more shots. But I didn’t fret when she was 0-for-whatever – she was taking good shots. Now, those good shots are are finding their way in the basket, and it’s making us a much more balanced basketball team.”
