Everything Dawn Staley said before the Gamecocks play Kentucky

South Carolina head women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley spoke with the media before the No. 3 Gamecocks travel to Lexington to take on No. 16 Kentucky on Sunday afternoon.

Here’s everything she had to say.

Is it safe to assume you’ll have Tessa (Johnson) back for Sunday or do we have to check the availability report?

“Yes. Of course.” (Check the availability report.)

Clara Strack and Madina (Okot), they’re both really mobile, kind of versatile centers. Just, what do you see from that matchup so far on tape?

“She’s tough, like she’s really tough because she moves you around. She’s unafraid. She’s really good on both sides of the basketball. Tough matchup for anybody, that’s why she’s been…was she first-team SEC last year? Yeah. I mean, in our league, and she’s repeating that. I think it’ll be wills. We got to put Madina in positions where she can be effective, and if Madina’s guarding her, then we got to give her a little bit of help. But I think Madina’s up for the challenge, and I’m sure they both are. So it should be a really good battle. Not just them, a good point guard battle, just a good battle of two good SEC teams.”

Along with Clara Strack, (Teonni) Key has been a vocal part of their team. How do you contain that type of player who is very vital on the boards, all game, all season long?

“One is be aware that she’s bringing that to the table. And if you’re aware of what she can bring to the table, that’s half the battle. You’ll be locked into the things that she does well and just try to limit. It’s hard. It’s really hard to shut a team, or really good individual players, like, down. And if you’re going to do something like that, it’s certain not just the head-to-head battle. It is how the team is actually gang rebounding, or helping off in the driving lanes, so we are aware of the things that she could do well on the floor.”

Ali (Tournebize) had a career-high five rebounds last night. When she’s rebounding, when we’re watching it, we’re seeing her miss a lot of rebounds, but is that because her arms are so long that she’s getting to rebounds out of her area, or do you want her to rebound stronger? What are you seeing?

“We need her to rebound. Like, we need her…I think she’s still adjusting, because it’s so very physical. She’s getting her hands on the ball because I do think people are boxing her out, putting a body on her, so she’s trying to rebound out of her area. I think, you know, that’s the leap that could probably get a lot better, shorter, because rebounding is about, less about a skill, more about a want, and a decision to do it. So I think (with) her, she’s just getting more acclimated to things.”

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A fun thing, with the team names, the Freshies, and Daycare, does this team this year have a name?

“Right now, they’re the Champs. SEC champs. We don’t have one, they don’t really have….the Nicies? They’re real nice. They’re nice, young people. We don’t really have a name for them. Nothing really kind of jumps off the page like the Freshies or Daycare. I would say they’re more in the line of the Freshies than they are Daycare, thankfully.”

The other day at the men’s basketball game, what did Cocky say to you?

“Cocky caught me off guard with that one. Every time I’m close to a mascot, I do ask them a question to see if they will talk back, not expecting they would talk back. He talked back, and kept talking. I was just asking what year he was. He said he was a junior, and he caught me off guard. I was like, ‘You’re not supposed to be talking!'”

Coach, you mentioned last night, 12 straight seasons leading the country in attendance. It set an NCAA record, it surpassed Tennessee’s 11 straight. What kind of honor is that to kind of take over that title from Pat Summitt?

“Unbelievably grateful that we could do it in a place like this. I mean, it’s hard. Let me just say this. It’s hard for any women’s basketball program, but the way that we build our attendance was based on just word of mouth, based on being accessible to our fans, and once you make people feel good, they make you feel better. And that is exactly what’s taking place here, with us being our 12th straight consecutive attendance record. Unimaginable. It’s not something that I was probably aiming for, but it feels good because most, probably almost, I would say probably say 100% of national champions create a home court advantage. And we haven’t won enough national championships that will equate to the amount of support that we’ve gotten over the 12 years that we’ve done it, but 25% ain’t bad.”

We got an email saying you’ll be getting an honorary degree from Smith College today and speaking. I’m curious just your initial thoughts on that specific thing happening in a few months?

“I think it’s pretty cool, to not go to school and get a degree. One of my best friends, her daughter went to Smith. So, you know, I’m going to send a text out. ‘You spent all that time, you spent all that money, and look at me, I get it for free, right?’ It’s cool. I know the president, and it’s an all-female school that represents higher education. If any young person sees it, it feels like they’re impacted by that. If you want to go to a higher education institution, so be it. But I think it’s really cool.”

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You know how smart Joyce (Edwards) is. Every time I ask her a question about what she’s doing on the court, she always kind of looks at me and goes, ‘It’s just basketball.’ And I can never tell, like, does she just think I’m not smart enough to understand? Or is she so smart that she just sees everything that quickly?

“Joyce is pretty good. Like, I do think that the habits that she formed from an academic standpoint just overflows into basketball, and I’m sure basketball is a lot easier than the classes that she’s taking. And she studies it. Like, she is a person that, any time one of our coaches who have the scout ask about our opponents, you know, like today, she’s always raising her hand, right? And if we call on her, we’re like, ‘Don’t give it all to us. Save some for someone else, Joyce.” So it’s just like that. That’s Joyce. Thats, you know, when you say that, that’s super believable because that’s what we get every day.”

Have you had a player watch that much film before?

“Yeah, Aliyah (Boston). Aliyah’s probably one. Who else watched a lot of film? Aliyah’s probably the person that watched the most, and if someone else is doing it, I didn’t know about it, but I knew about Aliyah. I know about Joyce because the answers that they give are answers that you know they’ve watched. So it’s cool for them to kind of be a student of the game, and you can see it in their play.”

For Maddy McDaniel to have a game like what she had, with four steals and to have so much confidence from defensively to convert offensively, talk about the growth of what she’s been able to bring this season up until now?

“Yeah, Mouse is…just her ceiling’s gotten even higher. I think she wanted to impact our team. Like, wanted more than just being a backup point guard. Like, she’s an integral part of our success. Like, we lose nothing when we insert her into the game. We gain a lot, too, because Mouse is able to…she’s got really good court vision. She’s really aggressive offensively. Defensively is where she’s probably made the biggest jump, because her impact, you can see it on the ball, off the ball. And she’s just coming around. And you want to see young players, just work on their game, get the playing time, and actually continue to produce.”

How’d you like the crowd defending her, when she got shoved early in the first quarter yesterday?

“You know, after a whole, I wanted to say…let’s not, but I mean, it’s a part of the game. It really is a part of the game, and we did get an apology from Coach Harper. We got an apology, and I told Mouse that she sent an apology. You know, we’re just happy that nobody got hurt and we’re able to continue to play.”

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