Everything Dawn Staley said to preview the Charleston Southern game

South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley spoke with the media on Wednesday to preview Thursday’s game against Charleston Southern. Here is everything she said.

Didn’t see Chloe (Kitts) or (MiLaysia Fulwiley) out there. Are they ok?

Yeah, yeah they’re good. They’ll be alright.

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Is the Charleston Southern game a home-and-home?

I think it was a two-for-one. And then we paid them to come back. So I don’t think we’re going there. But Ari’s the one… (asks Ariana Moore for confirmation)… this is it.

Saw Sakima (Walker) out there with the highlighters, is she good to play?

Yeah, she’s good. Actually, Adhel (Tac) was with the highlighters and Adhel kicked our butts, so we want some of that good action.

What do “the other three” need to show in order to get more playing time?

In practice, it’s doing what they do. When you play well with the highlighters, you get the nod. I mean, it’s like three of them playing for an opportunity to get in. And when they get in, they don’t have to play perfectly, but they have to know what we’re doing. It’s unfortunate that (as compared to) some players on some teams, (our players’) window of opportunity is smaller, so they have to build trust with us.

It’s more the numbers. The four post players are definitely going to get their minutes. They have to, they’ve earned their minutes, they’ve been here, they know what we’re doing. So, the other ones just have to play well in that window that they have.

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On why the game was moved to a noon starting window.

Really, it’s to get our players a little bit more time to go home. It wasn’t anything other than that. And come to find out the arena has an event after us. They love the fact that we moved the game time up, so let’s put it on them. That’s a joke, y’all.

The team has a pretty big break after this. What do you want to see tomorrow in order to relax and enjoy the break?

Our standard. Our standard is our standard. We just really have been harping on playing to our standard. Let’s play disciplined basketball, let’s build. Let’s build towards, we’ve got a non-conference game after Christmas break, into our conference, and we want to play good basketball heading into the hardest conference, the most challenging conference in the country.

Last game before a long break. They’re college kids, they’re excited about going home, is it a task to keep them focused, especially with a noon tip?

You threaten them. I did, I said “I’ve been in college before, I’ve been in this situation before. I understand the place of the mind, to be in two places, to want to go home. You can’t fight that.” So it has to be your discipline. You have to be where your mind is. But if your mind is at home, your play is going to say so. If your mind is here, you’ll do what you’ve been doing and be the disciplined athlete that you are. So it’s really a mental test for all of us. For me, it’s for us to play to our standard, always.

Are you getting Christmas costumes on the sidelines again, like the last game a couple years ago?

No, I don’t think so. We’re bad planners, we’ve been on the road so much that we couldn’t plan anything at home. I’ll try to put a little red in the arena tomorrow.

When it comes to the post players, there’s been so much made about life without Kamilla. And last year, they did play without Kamilla a few times, and from the outside looking in, it looked pretty seamless. Why has this year been more of a process of getting everyone comfortable without her?

There’s comfort in knowing that you have six, seven, whether they’re going to their national team competition, then during that time we had been together for a long time. So, starting this year, it’s so new. There’s so much room, actually, to grow on both sides of the basketball. It takes time to build the chemistry.

We had really good chemistry with Kamilla. We still have good chemistry, but people are still trying to find their way, and where they can impact on both sides of the basketball. And we’re getting there. We’re much better than we were a month ago, two months ago. But we’re still that same team that played UConn without her, a couple of other teams that we played without her. We just have to continue to tap into that.

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