Dawn Staley Discusses Win Over UConn
There were moments when the game felt like it could've swung in the other direction. Still, Aliyah Boston and the South Carolina Gamecocks weathered the major and minor storms to hold on and defeat the UConn Huskies on Sunday afternoon. After the game's conclusion, Dawn Staley met with the media to discuss the game, which didn't start well, with the Gamecocks being down eleven points heading into the second quarter.
At the start of the period, Staley opted to go with South Carolina's "bigger lineup," which includes Boston, Kamilla Cardoso, and Laeticia Amihere simultaneously on the floor. Carolina wound up outscoring the Huskies 20-9 in the final ten minutes before halftime, which Dawn credited to her team's play style.
"I liked their aggressiveness, I liked the fact that they were grinding it out. I mean it wasn't pretty, but it was just making sure that they didn't get open looks," Dawn recalled. "They were able to play on the fly, they were able to execute what we needed to execute on both sides of the basketball and [we] found ourselves back in the basketball game."
Cardoso, in particular, made her presence felt in the majority of the contest, scoring a double-double in just 21 minutes of action. According to Staley, made a difference for the Gamecocks.
"It starts in practice, she really has to take it a lot more seriously because there's not a whole lot like her. She's mobile, she's efficient, she rebounds the basketball even if it's her own misses, and she's a shot blocker," Staley explained. "She's an intimidation factor, and she needs to play that way all the time because if she doesn't have the performance like she had today, we lose the basketball game."
There's no question that games like these are good for South Carolina in the long haul due to how much it replicates a March Madness-type atmosphere with the energy level and the heightened importance of each play, something that didn't go unnoticed by Dawn Staley.
"This was a national championship like game, so I want us to feel what it takes in order for us to [run the table]," she stated. "It's gonna take this kind of effort and attention to detail, and the crowd may not be in our favor, but we have to lock in."
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