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

No. 2 South Carolina women’s basketball defeated the No. 5 Texas Longhorns, 67-50, Sunday afternoon at Colonial Life Arena. Head coach Dawn Staley spoke to members of the media following the Gamecocks’ fourth straight SEC win.

Here’s everything she had to say.

Bree Hall’s defense on Madison Booker

“I mean, we knew Breezy [Bree Hall] was the primary defender. We knew she was gonna come out the game at some point. And I thought everybody else that Gardner, Tessa came in did a pretty good job on her, you know, but I think she just had a really off night. I think part of part of that was us.

“The other part was just she was missing chippy. She’s missing mid range shots. I mean, she’s a, she’s a 50% shooter. So part of that was, you know, the luck of the CLA’s lid being put on, on the rim for her. But we’re fortunate. We’re fortunate. We’re fortunate, fortunate. We took care of home because we got to go there and play. And playing will be enough tough game.”

Beat in the turnover battle yet again, how does taking good shots allow you to win still?

“It’s all about taking good shots. I think you can have a night, as far as having as many turnovers as we had, with taking good shots, you lose games taking bad shots. And for us, we were finally getting to that point where we’re taking better shots, and we’re taking rhythm shots, and it’s paying off for especially in the game like this.”

As she’s battled ups and downs this season, what did you see from Sania Feagin today?

[South Carolina-LSU WBB: Win tickets]

“I mean, she’s just giving it up on both sides of the basketball — she is. I think once a player has a breakthrough of just not putting obstacles in front of them, they just have to break through. You know, she had a pretty good game, I mean, from a statistical standpoint, but all the other stuff, the intangible she she always kept her feet above the bigs. She was communicating out there and directing.

“And you know when, or you have someone that has sat for as long as she sat and is playing as well as she played. You know, that is it. That’s what we were trying to get from Feagin for three years now. You know, her freshman year, she coasted. She just let Aliyah [Boston] do what she needed to do and then she posted a little bit more. But now I think it’s just her talent, as well.”

You’ve had well balanced teams in the past, what makes this team different?

“I think they’re a product of who we are. That’s who we’ve been. I think they like each other. Like the teams that we’ve had really good chemistry and success. They like each other, you know, they want to they want to play for each other. They want each other to only look good, and they hold each other accountable. So this team is in line with that.”

How much is Raven Johnson impacting a big game like this?

“I mean, Raven just wants to win. That’s it. She’s all about winning. And she’s won like, she’s won state championships. She came here in South Carolina, she was like, ‘I’m coming to win championships.’ Like, and you look at her, like, oh, yeah right. Like, she doesn’t really know how hard it is to win championships, right? So, but she’s only one. She’s only one. She doesn’t care about the stats. You know, although not having great stats will probably from her mind, and probably her family’s mind, would have put her in the position of getting being drafted high in the WNBA draft. But I mean, the audience, the intangibles, like she can go in and do what she’s doing right now and not skip a beat because she defends, she rebounds, she communicates, she can be the fifth option in an offense and still be okay with her contributions at the end of the day. She’s a winner.”

What type of work do you think Joyce Edwards does without the ball that helps sets her up to get her some really good looks?

“I mean, Joyce is unafraid. Joyce is relentless. Joyce has the unfortunate position of having to guard some really bigs, and she doesn’t shy away from it like she embraces the physicality of it. I mean, it’s not very, very many freshmen can hold their own from a physicality standpoint, but she’s highly motivated. She wants to win. She wants to do well. And you know, as she chose us, because we’re getting to see all those things, not just her scoring points and getting rebounds, but the fight that the fed to play physical, to give up a few inches and not really care.”

How has MiLaysia Fulwiley progressed defensively?

“When Lay’s locked in, I mean, she impacts it on both sides of the basketball. I think I would like for her to really understand her power from a defensive standpoint. So we’re always encouraging her, you know, the only reason why she comes out of the game is her not defending. Other than that, it is when she does this. So I think she’s finally understanding her power on both sides of the basketball, and I hope she’s consistently getting the stat.”

What is Bree’s ability to see the floor like especially with her assists today?

“It’s that like, I mean, we need more. We need Breezy, making more of those decisions, I think. I mean, she sometimes gets a little overzealous, wanting to score the basketball, so she misses out on those opportunities that create hockey assist for us. Today, she just put it all together for us, like the pace that she was playing with on the defensive side of the ball, the focus, and then offensively. She had a big shot, like she had a big three. When I think they cut, they cut into our league, it might have been 12 points, and she knocked down the big three. She’s always ready. She’s playing like the senior that that we expected.”

When it comes to toughness, how much is toughness coaches and how much of toughness is what your players have to bring out of themselves in a big game?

“I mean, it’s both. But I would say with our team, they seem to really focus in. When there’s a number beside our opponent, they practice a little better. They’re more focused. They talk less. I mean, they knew, the intangibles of this game would play a huge role in us winning or losing. And those intangibles are, you know, those 50/50, balls the intangibles are when your man is beating you, the trust, the help, and stay in the play and not give up on anything. I think it’s ingraining them to do that from a want to win, and it’s ingrained in them through our coaching staff.”

What do you like about this team and what do you think they need to get better at?

“I mean, I like the fact that we haven’t reached our potential. Like, we’re still getting better. We’re still getting used to it, and then we have an injury like Ashlyn, and then we we’re still formulating who we are, and this league will tell us. This league will tell us who we are. It will define who we are.

“In the successes that we have, the years that we’ve been very successful, we’ve been a great rebounding team, right? That’s one two. We’ve been an efficient field goal shooting team. And we’re not there, you know, as far as the number. You look at the NCAA numbers, and it’s not young, you’re in, 12, and you need to be around one or two, top five in those categories, because they are really good teams out there that’s going to challenge those two areas. And we’re getting better. We’re taking better shots, the rebounding thing, and we have a 20 off into rebounds. I mean, fortunately for us, that toughness and that that will to play through it really helped us. But giving them 20, offensive rebounds will kill you, probably any other night besides today.”

How would you evaluate your team’s performance controlling the post?

[South Carolina-LSU WBB: Win tickets]

“We won. I think we won that battle. I mean, we won a battle from a scoring standpoint, we won that. We didn’t win the rebounding battle, but everything below that, like the extra effort, the we really concentrated on making sure they got no direct passes in their posts and not playing behind them in the times that we did play behind something bad happened. So we’ll clean that part of it up. But I’m just really proud of them because they are, they are playing together. They’re playing for Ashlyn. They’re playing to make sure that, you know, people don’t look at us as not contenders.”

What does it say about the strength of the team to hold firm in the end of the half when calls weren’t going South Carolina’s way?

“I mean, they’re focused. I mean, they were focused today, like they wanted to win, and they didn’t let their foot off the gas no matter what was happening on the floor. We had some some bad decisions and turnovers. You know, we turned the page. And we haven’t been a team that turns the page. We’ve been a team that will complain here or there and not get back on defense, but we just turned the page. I mean, it’s beautiful for them to just to play that way, because we’re always harping, ‘Let’s get back. Let’s get back.’ I think they had some turnovers. And usually she’ll just stay in the moment she got back. I mean, she’s got skills, got another layup. So it is those kind of plays that will will close the gap with some of the you know, so some of the things that we need to improve it.”

Do you feel like you’re starting to see some of the leadership void in seniors?

“I mean, it’s a collective effort, like on any given night. It could be Breezy or Feagin or Pao [Te-Hina Paopao] or Ray [Raven Johnson], and it’s a collection of our seniors, the ones that have been there for a long time. They know. And then we got good we got good followers, like, we got good people on, on this roster that, that won’t rock the boat, you know, they’ll just fall in line. So it’s a really good, really good situation, where we just hold each other accountable, and again, they have a citizenship, that sisterhood, that they don’t want to let each other down. If that means checking someone, they’ll do it. And it’s not taken any other way besides getting us better.”

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