Everything Dawn Staley said after South Carolina's loss to UConn

South Carolina head women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley spoke to the media following the team’s 87-58 loss to UConn. Here’s everything she had to say.

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On the most glaring issues from South Carolina’s performance against UConn

“Transition, imbalance, bad shots will produce points for a UConn team. They just don’t allow you to get back in it to set your defense up. By the time you think about it, their three is going up and through the net.”

On how the Gamecocks look to recover from loss to UConn

“You just get back to your habits. I mean, we’re not going to change. We’re not going to wholesale change what we’re doing. A loss like this is about toughness. A loss like this isn’t about anything besides getting our players to just keep keeping the main thing, the main thing. Obviously, when you lose like this, there’s something else that’s going on that isn’t just about basketball. So, we got to figure that out and get back on it.”

On how matchups like South Carolina-UConn impact women’s basketball

“You have to have them. I think they move our game forward. The score probably pushes it back a little bit.

“We got to play better. We got to perform better. I feel really bad for our FAMs. They packed the house, they did their part, and we just really had an embarrassing performance. We got to get things back on track. I think we had, probably, all of our streaks broken this particular year, but it was a hell of a ride to win 71 straight here. We got a chance to start a new streak on Thursday, and we got to get back at it.”

On the Gamecocks’ defensive struggles

“Here’s the thing: they got 13 threes. You hit 13 threes, it’s damaging to your defense from a physical and psychological standpoint. She hits three threes, I’m going to stick a little bit closer. And then, the driving lanes opened up because you’re sticking a little bit closer, and you’re not in your gap help. They made you think about all of those things, and they had their way with us. There’s just no trying to find a silver lining to it – we got beat, and we got beat bad.

“It’s hard when they shot as well as they shot and still get offensive rebounds. (It was just a) major implosion for us. You can pull out a lot of different stats, and they’re all going to end the same way, which is, ‘We did not perform well in any area that was great.’ At the end of the game, we’re just trying to figure out, ‘(If) we see this team again, what can we do in certain situations – certainly, not from the defensive standpoint, but more so from an offensive standpoint?'”

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On South Carolina’s effort on offense

“Since we’re on the higher-education campus, ‘F.’ This season is a long season, right? You play a team like UConn – you win, it may have some ill effect to the next game; you lose, and it definitely will wake you up. So, hopefully, it will be the latter, and we can get back going against Arkansas on Thursday.”

On finding balance between challenging players and not letting effects of loss linger

“They’re feeling as lowly as I am, as lowly as our coaching staff. They know. We let them talk about what took place, and they said all the right things. (It) wasn’t sugarcoating – we definitely have to get better. And we will.”

On Sarah Strong’s performance against South Carolina

“Sarah (Strong)‘s good. I mean, we wanted her. She’s a difference maker. She can do a lot of things with the basketball, and (she’s) super smart. I think she’s just (got) high intelligence that will put her in a position where you can’t really stop her because she can pass it, she can shoot it. She’s a great reader; she rebounds the basketball. She plays smart.”

On how the Gamecocks aim to improve their physicality

“You have to look at who we are, who we’ve been 25 games in. Who are we? And you get back to that. You get back to showing them who we are; you get back to practicing who we are. You get back to just the habits that made us a really good basketball team. I think we’re a little fatigued mentally and physically, just a gauntlet of a season. But there comes a time when you can regroup and get it back. Now would be the perfect time to do that with four games left in the regular season, and then, going into our SEC Tournament.”

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