MINNEAPOLIS — Daybreak Staley was dropping.
Staley, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and Corridor of Famer as a participant, had coached at Temple, in her hometown, Philadelphia, for eight years, however the group couldn’t get past the primary weekend of the N.C.A.A. match.
So when Staley took over as coach of South Carolina’s ladies’s basketball group in 2008, she had one purpose on her thoughts. “I wished to win,” Staley stated Saturday. “I wished to win the nationwide championship.”
Underneath Staley, the Gamecocks have made 10 consecutive N.C.A.A. tournaments, earned 4 journeys to the Ultimate 4 and, after Sunday night time, gained two nationwide championships. This has been a sluggish burn for Staley, who rebuilt South Carolina’s program from the bottom up. That Sunday’s win was towards Connecticut, probably the most embellished ladies’s basketball program, suggests a altering of the guard within the sport.
Staley constructed a powerhouse group led by Aliyah Boston, who gained awards as the highest participant and defender. Beginning guards Zia Cooke, Brea Beal and Destanni Henderson, Staley stated, have “logged lots of minutes collectively,” and because of this they play like “shorthand writing.”
“You don’t should say a lot,” Staley stated. “You may simply level, they usually know the change.”
Her rosters have proved themselves again and again. Staley has led the Gamecocks to their solely No. 1 rankings in program historical past and despatched eight Gamecocks to the W.N.B.A draft, together with the No. 1 general choose in 2018, A’ja Wilson, who helped convey dwelling the Gamecocks’ first nationwide title in 2017.
On Sunday night time, Wilson was readily available rooting for her alma mater.
UConn, led by Coach Geno Auriemma, laid the groundwork for a lot of that success, Staley stated. Auriemma has gained 11 championships at UConn, the place he has been in cost since 1985.
“Whether or not individuals consider that or not, he has helped our recreation develop tremendously,” Staley stated. “I believe lots of what we’re capable of do and get is off the backs of their success. I believe the individuals up at UConn deal with their ladies’s basketball group as a sport. They’re pressured to due to all of the successful and all of the success, however you might take a web page out of their guide.”
Going into the championship recreation, neither coach had misplaced a nationwide championship recreation. Then Staley defeated Auriemma.
“I advised Daybreak after the sport, they had been one of the best group within the nation all yr,” Auriemma stated Sunday night time.
Whereas South Carolina is pushing individuals to assume past UConn because the gold customary in ladies’s school basketball, Staley hesitated to name her program a dynasty. However she acknowledged the enjoying subject was altering.
“What I believe is essential as a Black girl and coach is the best way you do it, like the instance that you just set for different coaches to comply with,” Staley stated after Sunday’s recreation.
“I simply need to be an awesome instance of do issues the proper means and maintain our recreation in a spot the place the integrity is unbroken, as a result of that’s the best way we’ll develop,” she added.
Whereas South Carolina’s two titles could look like child steps in comparison with UConn’s 11 championships, the game is not dominated by one group. This season has proven how ladies’s basketball is in a really totally different period, with a wealth of expertise is unfold throughout the nation evinced, partly, in six double-digit seeded groups making the spherical of 16.
South Carolina is a member of the Southeastern Convention, which is thought primarily for soccer. Staley, via her success, has drawn far more consideration to ladies’s basketball at her college. She has positioned herself because the highest-paid Black girl teaching a group and cultivated a loyal fan base that has led the nation in attendance for ladies’s school basketball for seven straight seasons.
“When she first obtained right here, it wasn’t all rainbows and stuff,” Beal, a junior guard, stated forward of Sunday’s recreation. “I believe, simply trying again on that and the way she constructed an awesome neighborhood, an awesome place, I believe simply having our personal legacy and constructing that for us was key.”
Candace Parker of the W.N.B.A.’s Chicago Sky stated South Carolina is carving out its personal path.
“I might say the subsequent U.S.C. is the subsequent U.S.C., I believe everyone seems to be chasing who they need to be, their very own identification,” Parker stated after Sunday’s recreation. “I believe they’re who they’re they usually’re doing what they’re meant to be.”
If Boston has her means, Sunday night time’s win is just the start.
“I believe over the previous couple years you’ve simply been capable of see this program and the way it simply continues to develop,” Boston stated, including that extra gamers will need to go to South Carolina due to “the ambiance that we now have right here.”