Everything Dawn Staley said before South Carolina travels to SEC Tournament

South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley spoke with the media Wednesday prior to the Gamecocks heading to Greenville for the SEC Tournament.

Check out the transcript below.

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Coach, start of the postseason. How’s practice leading into it?

Good. Good. We’re ready to rock and roll.

Going into the Ole Miss game, you said that you guys need to be playing your best basketball now not waiting for Greenville. Now as you’re heading into Greenville are you guys playing your best basketball?

I think we’re moving towards that. I think certain players are certainly playing a lot better, a lot more focused, a lot more just impactful, both sides of the basketball, and it’s a lot of them. So I think we’re just, throughout the season, we have a player here play well, a player there but I think there are a lot of players playing well, which makes us feel good about going into postseason play.

Describe how a tournament like this can help be a final tune up for the NCAA Tournament

Our league is tough in itself. The conference tournament is tougher, think it’s tougher than the league because it’s just so condensed, and you’re going to get the best of the best, or the best of the best that’s that’s playing their best on this weekend.

I mean, this league always puts you in a position to compete for a national championship. Our national championships were realized because of the SEC, in a type of conference that we deliver time and time again, like we always are putting each other in the position of having to compete, having to adjust, having to play different styles, and bringing in Oklahoma and Texas really, really, actually gets us even more prepared.

What have you told the freshmen who haven’t been through this about this weekend and kind of how unique that that setting, as you say, is to play in?

“Nothing. It’s another business trip. I mean, I don’t want to put any more pressure on them than what it is. And it’s a gauntlet. We’ve been through a gauntlet. So we just happen to, some of the hardest stretches of our season will apply this weekend.”

There was a moment in Sunday’s game where Raven calmed Chloe down after she thought she was fouled. How is veteran leadership going to help in these next stretch of games.

“We’ve seen that over and over again … well it happened in the Ole Miss game as well. I think Chloe traveled and you have Breezy, you had Raven coming right over to her. ‘Turn the page.’ We’ve been talking a lot lately about one, keeping the main thing, the main thing. Two, just being unflappable, just unshakable, unbothered, no matter what, no matter what environment we’re in, no matter what the circumstances are, just really rely (on) and trust your habits.

Do we want our players to be robots? No. They’re going to react to what they think is happening out there on the floor. But the moment they can just turn the page as quickly as possible is the moment that, you know, we’ve gotten better at towards the end of the season.

What’s Sakima Walker’s status for the weekend?

“I gotta find out Thursday night, y’all. Find out Thursday.”

There’s a big conversation when coaches play you about the talent you recruit. McDonald’s All-Americans. How do you sift through that?

“I don’t know, sometimes I have fun with it, I would imagine that nobody’s turning down McDonald’s All-Americans. We’re just fortunate. And just so you know, just because you got a McDonald’s All-Americans doesn’t mean you got a great player. Doesn’t mean you got a great player. For us, we’ve attracted them because of the style of play, the style of discipline, the winning tradition, the growth, the producing pros. That’s what attracts McDonald’s All-Americans to us.

And, not, not even just that. We create meaningful relationships with the household, not just to recruit the entire household. Is the household happy and we’ve done our job. It’s a lot of Happy Meals to go around.

Last year, MiLaysia came alive in the SEC Tournament, how has she grown in the last 12 months

“I mean, MiLaysia is she’s a processor. Like, I mean, she’s a Taurus, so she’s a little stubborn, she’s a lot competitive, she is, don’t tell her no, cause she’s gonna prove you wrong. You have to approach her in a way of opening her mind up.

You know, stubborn. I got this, I can do this, I can do anything and, very true, all of this is very true but there are times in which you need to place some things, right? And we’ve placed some things in her life, in her game that, now it’s being utilized to a point where it’s lean. You know, her layups, her defense. like it all has improved over the last few months, not even year, like the last few months. So I’m pretty happy about it.

I’m happy that, you know, a lot of our kids got recognition, her being the sixth player, her being on second team, Joyce being on the first team, Feagan and Raven being on all-defensive team, Pao being on the second team, I was quite shocked, shocked. Because when we’ve had our best teams we weren’t in the number in that regard so kudos to the coaches who voted for our players even when there’s a little South Carolina fatigue.

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