NCAA champion coach declares Dawn Staley’s South Carolina “the most dangerous team in the country”
Championship coach Carolyn Peck, who led the Purdue Boilermakers to the 1999 NCAA title, is buying into Dawn Staley's national trophy threat this season. The former coach discussed SEC basketball on NBC Sports' episode of "Got Next with Meghan and Zora," released on Oct. 29.
Zora Stephenson shared that Staley believes her roster is practicing better than last year's lineup. Peck not only agreed but also dived into the reasons that might make the Gamecocks a better unit than their record-breaking season.
"They're practicing better than they did last year after how they played last season, I think that this is the most dangerous team in the country," Carolyn Peck said.
"I mean, you got a defender like Raven Johnson, a point guard in Te-Hina Paopao and Breezy Hall is back, Ashlyn Watkins, Sania Feagin Khloe, Chloe Kitts. I mean you can go on and on. And these are players that got significant playing time and then you add to that a great talent like Joyce Edwards, come on, South Carolina is going to be that team to be." (5:25)
The South Carolina Gamecocks are coming off an undefeated championship season. They won five out of their six NCAA tournament contests with a double-digit point difference, making for an average win margin of 24.3 points.
Carolyn Peck claims Dawn Staley's success will come from her culture
Carolyn Peck believes that the biggest factor in South Carolina's ability to protect their title will be their toughness, which is what Staley has imbibed in USC's culture over the years.
"You know Zora, after watching the WNBA finals - Minnesota and New York - the thing that I really believe is that toughness is a culture, it's not something that you can just turn up," Peck said in the same interview.
"And toughness has been the culture that Dawn Staley has established at South Carolina. They're going to defend that's first and foremost, they're going to rebound the basketball, that is a non-negotiable"
A signifying factor of USC's toughness is Arkansas transfer Maryam Dauda's journey. She had the best game of her career against South Carolina last season. Dauda scored 19 points on 41.2% shooting and swatted 3 shots, earning praise from Dawn Staley in the post-conference.
However, when she practiced with the Gamecocks earlier this summer, her biggest challenge was keeping up with the Gamecocks’ physicality.