Recapping everything Dawn Staley said before South Carolina face Indiana in March Madness
Dawn Staley's South Carolina Gamecocks are coming off a phenomenal start to their bid in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. On Friday, the No. 1 seed Gamecocks defeated the 16th-seeded Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles 108-48, for their first-round win in March Madness.
As they now prepare for the second round, Staley is ecstatic to face a familiar foe in the ninth-seeded Indiana Hoosiers on Sunday. She shared her feelings during the media availability on Saturday.
"Super excited to play Indiana tomorrow," Dawn Staley said (0:05). "I know it's going to be a tough matchup. Teri (Moren) always has her teams ready to rock and roll and competing for 40 minutes. Our team is up for the challenge. So, we're excited to play here tomorrow afternoon."
The Gamecocks narrowly edged out the Hoosiers by just four points, 79-75, in the Sweet 16 of last year's winner-take-all tourney. Dawn Staley then shared the factors she and her coaching staff are looking at bouncing off of from last year's game.
"We just had a film session just a few minutes ago and the first thing we discussed was what happened last year," Staley said. (7:25) " ... I mean, they have the majority of the same team. So if I'm them, I'm looking at what happened last year to see if we made an adjustment and we could connect a little bit better defensively and communicate a little bit better defensively.
"We'll be prepared for it. Hopefully, they won't knock down as many threes as they did in that fourth quarter to put us in a position where they just fought back and we had to claw to get the win."
South Carolina's second-round matchup against the Hoosiers will be played on their home floor on Sunday, with tip-off scheduled for 3:00 p.m. ET.
Dawn Staley admits that she always turns to her point guards when it comes to team mistakes
Later on in the press conference, Dawn Staley was asked about her thoughts on veteran guards such as Raven Johnson who said that she feels more pressure in March Madness to be a facilitator, given that the coach was a floor general herself before.
Staley then reiterated that the reason behind this is that everything starts with that position first.
"If anything goes wrong on the floor, I blame the point guard, she said (10:20). "Anything, any kind of disconnect, miscommunication, and they could not have been involved in the interaction. But, they're the people that have to really communicate in huddles, in live play, real time, on both sides of the basketball."
"You're the connector, you're the link to what needs to happen for us to execute."
The South Carolina Gamecocks are aiming for their third national championship in four years, after winning it the 2022 and 2024.