Everything Dawn Staley said after South Carolina's win over Florida

Following a big 101-63 win over Florida on Thursday, South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley spoke to the media. Here is everything she had to say.

Dawn, again the four guard lineup, but Joyce (Edwards) is in there and obviously she is getting turnovers and running the floor. Is that something you all wanted to do specifically for this game or just put Joyce out there and see how it works?

“I mean, foul trouble made us do it and it might be a line up we have to utilize if teams are going to go small on us, so we might as well get a little bit of practice in it. We only utilized it today because of (Sania) Feagin and Chloe (Kitts) foul trouble.”

[Join GamecockCentral: $1 for 7 days]

(Te-Hina) Paopao said after Texas that she needed to be a better leader. I was just wondering if you could provide some insight about her leadership style, if maybe it looked any different in the last couple days? Are there any aspects of the game on or off the court that you tend to lean on her for?

“I think Paopao is a winner. I think she wants to win. Her time here at South Carolina, she has only lost two games and they surely did not feel good. I think this is her last go around and she wants to make sure that she is giving it her all and that she is giving this team what it needs when it needs it. She said it as part of when you decompress and you kind of break down what happened in the game and she felt like her leadership was needed. I felt like her scoring was needed just giving her some easy looks, getting the ball to go down, and I thought she shook off some stuff because she got a couple of three’s to go down. It was good for that to happen. Along with her wanting to be a better leader and wanting to give the team what it needs.”

Staying on the topic of Paopao, she opened the scoring for the game and then either scored or assisted on 12 of the next 14 points. How much does her performing well altered the flow and pace of the offense?

“She’s an elevator. She elevates our team. When Paopao hits a three, it seems to allow us to exhale. She has been that potent for us from an offensive standpoint. We almost in the Texas game we willing for her shots to go in because we know what that means. She is a playmaker, one that we know we want the ball in her hands. We want her coming off screens and we want her playmaking for us along with putting a ball in the hole especially outside of three, but also facilitating. I mean, she took more of an effort to play make today and we needed that.” 

Tonight you came out of a loss with maybe one of your better first quarters the whole season. Is it just as simple as a loss gets you refocused or something else that goes into responding to a loss the way you guys have both times?

“I told somebody this earlier. We win and we lose at the time that we need to, simply. We respond when we do not play well and win. There are things that we dissect because we know that if you play the way that you played in a win, but you did not play well, it could hurt you somewhere else down the line. We do talk about those things. We just wanted to get back in the win column. Just to feel good and get back to some normalcy when it comes to playing the style of play we need to play on both sides of the ball. We still got a little bit of work to do, but I do not think there will be a lack of focus, energy or effort with who we have coming in here on Sunday.”

Win tickets to the South Carolina-Arkansas women’s basketball game

Dawn, you knew coming in, Joyce was a terrific player. Did you ever worry that she would be ready to take on this kind of role with you guys because honestly if Ashlyn (Watkins) did not get hurt, there would be less opportunity there, but she has really risen to occasion there. 

“With someone that works as hard and studies as hard, I am just talking about the game. This is just who she is as a human being. She wants to be the very best at everything that she does and she does not lack the work ethic to do it. Am I surprised? No. Would we come out the gate and say you have to be this in the very beginning. No, it develops and I think she is a really good person that is regimented in how she does things, which is really a gift. I think in other ways, she needs to loosen up because everything does not materialize, like your preparation, so she has got to be in all places. She has to just improve in those areas in the game like she will know what her defenders doing or her players doing on either side of the ball. If they decided not to be there or go there, Joyce is still going to be in her spot where she looked at and where she saw it. So, she has to get better in those instances and she will and we will point them out to her. She is a great film watcher. She wants to see where she can get better, so this is par for the course for a player of her study habits.”

You said the loosening up stuff, you said the same thing about Aliyah (Boston)?

“Yeah, they are wired very similarly. They study it. We study habits and sometimes people do not play to their habits. We have to be ready for that.”

Win tickets to Senior Day, South Carolina-Kentucky women’s basketball game

Part of that massive first half, being able to get out on the break, your guards did a really great job of advanced passing and Joyce ran the floor really well. What is getting out in transition and getting ahead of the defense have in terms of maybe an impact on a team throughout a fourth quarter game?

“It was really a fast paced game. We got up and down. We pushed the ball. I thought Maddy (McDaniel) did a really good job catching the outlet up the floor. We have been really working on her and not come back to the ball like we got one shot in transition. If you do not capitalize in that time then you are going to put pressure on your half court offense. It just helps us open the game. It frees us up and it makes us a little bit more loose to play defense and a little more motivated when you can score quickly on offense.”

Dawn, you got UConn on Sunday. In the locker room you have some player who played them a lot before and some who have not. Is there maybe a little extra coming into this one or have you seen that yet before practice tomorrow?

“No, I mean, I think this team stays in the moment. I know they know we play UConn. You can’t get around it. We did not skip over this game, but you know a lot of people have just moved on to UConn. This league is unforgiving. We did not take Florida lightly, they scored a lot of points. We were very mindful of that. We wanted to make sure that they are not scoring 80 or 90 points like they have against some other teams.”

Discuss South Carolina women’s basketball on The Insiders Forum!