Put Dawn Staley in the GOAT conversation after perfect championship season

CLEVELAND — Before the national championship game, Dawn Staley was asked for her thoughts on the GOAT conversation. Staley’s opinion was that one has to win a title before entering that discussion.

In the context of Iowa star Caitlin Clark, Staley said, “If Caitlin wins the championship, she’s pretty damn good, yeah, she’s a GOAT. I mean, she’s really damn good regardless. But winning the championship would seal the deal.”

Staley and the Gamecocks prevented Clark from sealing the deal Sunday in South Carolina’s 87-75 win, but perhaps the more deserving conversation is about Staley herself. With her third championship culminating the 10th undefeated season in NCAA women’s basketball history, the Gamecocks coach has entered rarefied air after the greatest coaching job of her career. In addition to presiding over the most dominant program in modern college basketball, Staley’s full body of work puts her among the best coaches of all time.

Protect Dawn Staley AT ALL COST!! No if, ands or buts! 🔒🫡

— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 7, 2024

Take a look at Staley’s resume. She coached an Olympic gold-medal winning team in 2021. She is sixth in Final Four appearances, all six of them coming in the last decade. She is tied for fourth all-time in titles won with Tara VanDerveer. She is the fifth coach to complete an undefeated season, and she built a powerhouse at a school that had made all of two NCAA Tournament appearances in the 17 seasons before she arrived.

What she did in 2023-24 with South Carolina cannot be overstated. The Gamecocks lost all five starters from last season’s team, including one bench player who ended up being a first-round pick in the WNBA Draft. They returned two rotation players who averaged a total of 14 points and 11.2 rebounds a year ago. The coaching staff watched their workouts over the summer and candidly didn’t expect to be the best team in the country. There was real doubt internally and externally about what a nearly brand-new group could accomplish together.

Staley pushed all the right3 buttons in not only assembling the current roster but optimizing it. A year after teams could pack the paint on South Carolina and force the Gamecocks into being jump shooters, Staley recruited Te-Hina Paopao and found a facsimile of Paopao on the bench in Tessa Johnson. She empowered MiLaysia Fulwiley to show off the best, flashiest parts of her game while still remaining content in a bench role and learning how to be impactful defensively. She unleashed the inner beast within Kamilla Cardoso, challenging her to consistently be dominant as the focal point of South Carolina after playing as a sixth woman a year ago. The list goes on.

“She got the most out of this group,” ESPN analyst Andraya Carter said. “Sometimes the most out of groups in the past hasn’t been enough, and that’s OK. But to get the most out of this group – this young group, this new group – is just really cool.”

In a season that seemingly had been building toward a rematch between South Carolina and Iowa, Staley had her group perfectly prepared for the final. Her players had a feeling out period, falling down 10-0 in the blink of an eye, but they all looked to the bench and saw a calm Staley, keeping them from getting frustrated or flustered, in the words of Bree Hall.

Instead, the Gamecocks stuck with the plan and attacked their advantages. As always, Cardoso was the focal point. That meant they put pressure on the paint and trusted Cardoso to clean up their misses. They exploited their size inside by playing high-low basketball with Cardoso and Kitts and/or Ashlyn Watkins, delivering the ball to their most unguardable player. If the Hawkeyes doubled Cardoso, she was quick to swing the ball out to an open shooter.

“Since the first day I got to South Carolina, she’s been working so hard to get me ready and prepared for moments like this,” Cardoso said.

When Iowa dropped into a zone, Staley got Tessa Johnson in the game as the best combination ball mover and shooter. South Carolina knew it had to bend the zone towards the strong side and then deliver a quick pass to the weak side, where Johnson and Hall were quick to launch before the defense could rotate. When Fulwiley was in the game, they pushed the pace, knowing that Iowa couldn’t contain her speed; otherwise, they settled the ball in the half court to force the Hawkeyes to defend, and thus tire out.

Defensively, the Gamecocks were more active. After leaving the middle of the floor open in 2023 against the Hawkeyes, Staley switched the scheme to put more pressure on Clark at the point of attack and then allowed perimeter defenders to help, trusting that they could recover to shooters in time with their speed and length.

“We were just connected from one through five,” assistant coach Winston Gandy said. “That’s the credit to the players and credit to Coach in the sense of, even despite the early run they had, Coach was unfazed, you know? And I thought her belief in the plan, her belief in the five that were on the floor really helped settle us down.”

Staley’s belief in this group shined throughout the season, mostly in how she forced herself to change to adapt to their personalities. Whether that was allowing her players to goof around more than usual to the point that they took on the moniker of a “daycare” or use their phones on game days when that was previously disallowed, her faith in them was validated.

Staley is beloved by her players, including the former ones who make it a point to come back and create relationships with subsequent teams. Her success and reputation also resonate beyond South Carolina. It’s one thing for Hall and Cardoso and Paopao to call her the GOAT; but for two straight seasons, Staley has been voted as the coach most players around the country want to play for. Chiney Ogwumike called her “one of one” and said this season was “absolutely” Staley’s finest coaching job.

“No starters, all translating to the W, which means she’s doing her job,” Ogwumike said, “And then to bring them back (to the Final Four) in an undefeated fashion and win. But it keeps getting better and better.”

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It’s hard to imagine what Staley can do to top an undefeated campaign, one that completes a three-year stretch of finishing 109-3. She hasn’t yet won back-to-back, and in doing so could join even more select company in 2025. (Those coaches are USC’s Linda Sharp, 1983-84; Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, 1996-98, 2007-08; and UConn’s Geno Auriemma, 2002-04, 2009-10, 2013-16.)

But Staley’s impact has always been in the relationships she’s developed, like when she carried on Carolyn Peck’s tradition of giving a piece of the net to the Black women coaches, and in doing so, fostered a community within that group. The impact is seen in the South Carolina alums who excel at the next level but still call on Staley for counsel, whether that’s A’ja Wilson simply needing to check in at least every two weeks or Zia Cooke calling for a confidence boost.

She is the new face of college basketball. The architect of the country’s leading program and the mouthpiece for the issues facing the sport and the women who play it.

Dawn’s awareness of the power her voice carries is really something. https://t.co/IY4cbpAQ3W

— Mike Golic Jr (@mikegolicjr) April 7, 2024

Her overall championship tally may still trail Auriemma and Summitt, but at this moment, no one has more influence over college basketball than Dawn Staley. The best players want to play for her and want to remain in her orbit long after they have finished.

“People would run through brick walls for her,” Paopao said. “To be able to have a coach like that, it’s unimagined. We’re all just really blessed to have someone like her in our corner. She just impacted our lives for the better.”

She’s changed the game for the better at South Carolina and has set a new standard for the rest of the country to meet. Sunday wasn’t her coronation – Staley’s legacy is already set in stone – but it was the defining moment of her coaching career to date. Her name will forever be mentioned among the best of the best.

(Photo of Dawn Staley: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)