Everything Dawn Staley said to preview the South Florida game

South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley spoke with the media on Friday to preview Sunday’s game against South Florida. Here is everything she said.

How much time have you had with the team this week with exams? How’s it been?

Second day. Energetic. Good, though. Good. Very competitive. Very energetic. We just started to just do some intra-squad scrimmages, where we’re just competing against each other. It gives us another level of just competition. Like, fresh breath. Break up the monotony of going against the highlighters, and it was really good, good action for us this week.

I know you guys have a few home games in a row, obviously, now. This first part of the season was pretty brutal for you guys. Just how physically and mentally taxing was this first month for you guys as a team?

It was taxing. I was tired. I was tired. Like, I look forward to this break. I look forward to our Christmas break, although I know we got a few more games to play. I think our players have really locked in. I know they have to be exhausted physically, mentally, and welcome the break that’s coming up, but they still want to approach each game and play to our standard.

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How’s Sakima (Walker)? Has she practiced this week?

She didn’t practice this week. It’s day by day. She shot the ball today, so that was good.

South Florida has played a couple of really good teams this season. What do you see from them in these first 10 games?

Some of the scores look lopsided. Some of the scores were closer than the end result. For us, it’s a team that poses a threat of, they’re always moving, they’re always going to challenge you to fit every screen, and a lot of that action is away from basketball.

We may have a tendency to not see the full court. They’re going to force us to do that. For us, we have to be disruptive. With a team like South Florida, you can’t allow them to just take the shots that they want to take, or else it’ll be a long, just a long day for us. So, it’s our will versus their will.

You’ve had 10 games. It’s time to reset this week. You feel like you’re maybe starting to get some of the combinations down you were talking about earlier in the year?

Yeah, we’re forcing combinations. The numbers throw it off a little bit. We have an aid in looking at analytics and looking at lineups and how productive they are as far as plus-minus. But I like certain groups together. Whether the plus or minus says it’s a good idea. I think our season is still very young, so we’ve got time for that part to develop, but I like the direction that we’re going in.

(MiLaysia is) playing so much better. (Ashlyn is) playing so much better. They make us a different basketball team when they’re as engaged as they were against TCU. They know what they mean to our basketball team. I get on them a lot, but certainly, it’s high praise for them today because ever since those practices prior to TCU, they’ve been on point. So, I just want to put that out there because I know a lot of people want to want to peel down some layers.

It’s their process, too. It’s their process. It’s everybody’s process that’s behind me to get better. Sometimes, it’s slower than we want as coaches, and sometimes, we’ve got to hold some people back, but for those two, I just think that they’ve responded extremely well with what they were challenged with a week ago.

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Speaking of Ashlyn, how’d you like that dunk compared to the other two?

That one surprised me. You can almost see the other ones coming, but I knew once she went to her runway – that’s her left side, it’s is her runway – and I still didn’t think she was going to do it because Prince was in pursuit.

Pretty impressive. I think she got a little nudged in the back, too; I watched it a couple of times. But it was pretty impressive. She said she made her mind up to do it. And I’m going to hold her to that. When she makes her mind up to do something, she gets it done, so I’m going to hold her to making her mind up to keep playing consistently, keep playing mad. Like, play mad, play like you, play hungry, because it works for you.

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