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

No. 2 South Carolina women’s basketball defeated the No. 19 Alabama Crimson Tide, 76-58, Thursday night in Tuscaloosa. Head coach Dawn Staley spoke to members of the media following the Gamecocks’ 12th straight win.

Here’s everything she had to say.

Opening Statement

“It’s more about what Alabama was doing to us. I thought they did a good job, just controlling tempo. I thought we played at their pace and they stuck around to the end of the game and made it a two-possession game. What we weren’t doing was executing. I mean, they made it hard for us to catch. We weren’t getting open, so they disrupted the flow of our offense, and we got to get better.”

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Dawn, we talked about how Joyce has come in and made an immediate impact. What is it like to see that happen on a consistent basis from a freshman of her caliber?

“Joyce is special. She works really hard at it. She doesn’t take plays off. She might not be ready for some plays, because they got her. Essence Cody got her in the fourth quarter. But she’s a relentless worker, she’s a tireless worker. She wants to be great at everything she does. And to see her play as consistently and efficiently over the past couple of games is saying that she’s found her footing.”

“I think she understands what we lost and what she needs to do to help, close that gap.”

From one SEC coach to another, what do you think about the progress that Coach Curry has been making here at Alabama and the growth of the program?

“Much respect. She does a great job. She does it the right way. And sometimes when you do it the right way, it takes a little bit longer. But once you get it going, it sustains itself. It’s not like up and down and up and down. She’s got great transfers. She’s got great stability. There’s not a whole lot of in-and-out, and the ones that she has coming in are perfect for her style of play.”

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“I’m happy to see people came and watched this team almost upset us. In this league, it’s hard but coach has done a great job at getting her team to play. It’s a hard place to play for us. It’s always been a hard place for us to play, and it’s directly related to her preparing her team to make it hard for us.”

21 points in the first quarter, how crucial was that for the rest of the game in terms of giving you guys a cushion on the scoreboard?

“I mean, it’s crucial for us to get off to quick starts. Because that’s something that we haven’t done consistently all season long. It helps us. We needed the cushion in order for us to just hold on to the lead, and hold on to some momentum even though it was slipping away from us. But the cushion was good for us. We’re usually a better second quarter team than we played today, but that was attributed to how they played us.”

It was 8 minutes, but for the first time in a month Maddy played tonight. What did you see from her, and was that about what you expected coming off an injury like that?

“Yeah, I mean she’s a little rusty. She’s trying to get in some good practice time. But it was good to get her out there, get her feet wet a little more. And hopefully we can find some opportunities to put her on the floor. But she looked rusty. She’ll get it together. She’s a fighter, she’s a competitor, and she’s a pretty good point guard.”

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In the fourth quarter, you guys were able to draw more fouls to get a couple more free throws. How do you guys study free throws or just go through that entire routine in practice so that it’s effective in the game?

“I have to credit Coach Boyer. Coach Boyer is our associate head coach, and we have been simulating game situations any time we scrimmage, any time we do possessions, if we get fouled we always shoot the free throw. We always shoot the two free throws just to get us in game mode. And then, after practice, no matter time constraints or not, our players have to make, I think it’s 30 at the end of practice.

“So it’s helped us tremendously. I think we, knock on wood, we’re probably shooting the highest percentage of my tenure. The highest, because we just talked about this. We just looked at last year’s, actually the past four years, and it’s always been in the sixties. So, it’s paying off.

I know Chloe had a bit of a slump to wrap up the calendar year scoring-wise. But she’s had double figures the past four games, her fifth double-double of the year. When she’s scoring the way that she has the last couple games, how much does that help the offense as a whole?

“I mean, anytime we can get any post scoring, it’s only going to open the game up for our guards. Chloe’s been doing a great job at just ‘head down and going’, she’s a veteran out there. She’s one of our most experienced post players, and I do think she feels the weight of losing Ashlyn. It’s working out in her favor. I think she’s done a great job rebounding. She sticks her nose into getting rebounds, she’s unafraid. We’ve got a post group that’s unafraid. They compete against each other in practice, and they are super supportive of each other and want each other to do well.”

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