South Carolina women's basketball vs. Wofford: Everything Dawn Staley said to preview the game
South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley met with the media on Saturday to preview Sunday’s game with the Wofford Terriers. Here’s everything she had to say.
QUESTION: How’s practice been since you guys have been back?
STALEY: Forced good. Forced good. Good. Good. We had a long break, and sometimes, when you have such a long break, you get out of rhythm. So, just trying to get us back into rhythm.
What do you still want to see from them tomorrow to know that they’re really prepared for conference play?
I just want us to play to our standard. That’s on both sides of the ball. That is unwilling to give up easy baskets, willing to be disciplined on offense, get some reversals, play selfless basketball, person that finds the best shot on the floor. So, just that.
Sakima Walker is on crutches. What’s her status?
She’s probably out. Out.
Still an ankle?
Yes.
Is everybody else ready to go?
Yes. If not, you’ll know tomorrow.
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What do these practices back from break usually look like to get the team back in the game?
Not good. It’s not good. They decompress as young people. They decompress. The season’s hard. I think a lot of people think it’s a glorified position to be in as a student-athlete. And there’s some really good perks to being a student-athlete, but the other part is it’s hard.
It’s hard, it’s hard. It’s hard work in here. It’s not just in here. It’s the preparation to get to here, the preparation for games, the expectations, the responsibility, the pressures. The pressure not just from what we put on them, the pressures of social media. So it’s really, really hard.
So when they have a chance to take a break from it all, they’re like any of us. You decompress. And then you’ve got to look forward to work the next day. It’s like coming off a vacation. You ain’t looking forward to that day that you return. But you got to do it because you’re disciplined, and you got responsibility. And no matter what you just came off of, you got to get back to the flow of things.
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And sometimes, it takes some time to adjust back to doing it. And that’s what it looks like, it feels like, sounds like, it’s frustrating. But at the same time, the quicker we jolt them into getting back to what we need to do, the better off we’ll be.
What’s your overall assessment of how Maddy (McDaniel) and Joyce (Edwards) are really coming into their roles?
Great. They’re high-intelligent young people. They are hard-working young people. They’re highly motivated young people. And when you have those attributes, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing.
They’re happy to be playing basketball, but Joyce likes sustainability, and Maddy likes fashion. They will be the most efficient and the most well-dressed when it comes to that.
But they happen to be on our team, and they’re lifting up our team. They’re elevating our team to a place where both of them will make our opponents’ scouting report, and that’s a great thing.
