Tampa, Florida – Dawn Staley and South Carolina are a victory to join an elite program of programs in the history of women’s basketball with a third national championship in four seasons.
Only two other schools have accomplished this feat: Uconn and Tennessee.
“It is difficult to enter what Pat Summitt and Geno (Auriemma) have done for women’s basketball, said Staley. “It is really difficult to be mentioned in this air. … Everything you do and you have been successful is really, really, really difficult.
“But once you are able to understand what it takes to succeed there, it’s a little easier because you know.”
Auriemma and the Huskies stand on the way with the teams that should play on Sunday for the NCAA title. The Auriemma team has won the championship for nine years, which closed a series of four consecutive titles from 2013 to 2016.
This victory was the most recent of the 11 Record national titles that Auriemma won during his four decades at school.
UCONN only reached the match for the title only once since 2016, and during this drought, appeared at the short end of the heartbreaking defeats of the last second in the Final Four on Buzzer-Beaders. The appearance of the isolated title of Huskies in the past nine years occurred in 2022 when the Staley team broke Uconn to start the current success of Gamecocks, a game that ended the perfect record of Auriemma in title games.
Auriemma has a healthy respect for Staley, knowing the southern Caroline coach of her days of play in Virginia in his time with American basketball. She was an assistant coach for him at the 2016 Olympic Games before becoming the head coach of the national team.
“To be where she is at the moment and for having done so in the way she has done so, I have a lot of respect for her,” he said. “I have enormous respect for her to know how she grew up and how she fought to get to where she is today.
After losing in the Final Four 2023 against Caitlin Clark and Iowa, the Gamecocks had an undefeated season last year in the third title of the school since 2017.
The only UCONN player who saw an important time in the title for the title three years ago against South Carolina was Paige Bueckers. She will play in her last match for Uconn in the hope of leaving school with a championship, joining many other great Husky who played for Auriemma.
“I think everything in life somehow taught me not to take things for granted,” she said. “Being in the national championship match, it is extremely difficult to reach and extremely rewarding to be part of. And how much we have to play 40 minutes and how connected we have to be connected throughout the game. It will be a racing game. These are extremely high issues.”
The teams gathered earlier this season and Uconn amazed the South Carolina with a 29-point victory that ended the 71 gamecocks’ game victories sequence, winning 87-58 on February 16.
Neither of the two teams puts a lot of stock in this match, although BETMGM has the Huskies as 5.5 -point favorites despite its seeded team.
Staley wants the achievements of South Carolina also recognized
While Staley has complimented what Bueckers accomplished for Uconn and women’s basketball during her career, she also believes that the dominant race of her team in recent years deserves equal recognition.
When the Gamecocks remained undefeated on their way to their championship last year, the major scenario was Clark, one of the biggest university basketball players trying to win a national title in his last match.
“Sometimes we create these stories about great players,” said Staley. “Caitlin was one of them; Paige is a part of it right now, and we tend to forget the story about what our children have been able to do.”
Staley sees a similar sentimental account unfolding around Bueckers, which like Clark, has accomplished almost everything at the college level outside a title.
“It’s a great player, but it is not because you are a great player that you have to win the national championship to legitimize it,” said Staley, who led Virginia to three finals, but never won a NCAA championship.
“Paige is legitimate. She was legitimate from the moment she went on this scene. ”
The Seniors of Staley are also legitimate. Sania Feagin, Bree Hall and Raven Johnson will each opt for their third national championship in four seasons.
“I want the feelings to concern our players and what our players have been able to do – also because there is room to make both,” said Staley. “We can raise Paige because it deserves it and raise our players because they deserve it. And that hasn’t talked much about it. There is room for that in our game.”
This is the seventh time that the pre-season pre-season teams of the Associated Press will play in the NCAA women’s championship match. The 2022 meeting was the previous time that it had happened and the South Carolina maintained the best unbeaten team in these matches.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
