Everything Dawn Staley said on South Carolina women's basketball Final Four win, postgame moment with Geno Auriemma

South Carolina women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley spoke with the media after the Gamecocks defeated UCONN in the 2026 Women’s Final Four. The Gamecocks now advance to Sunday’s National Championship against the winner of Texas and UCLA.

Here is everything she said postgame.

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Can you shed any light on the conversation you had with Geno right before the buzzer ended?

“You can ask Geno [Auriemma] the question. He’s the one that initiated the conversation. I don’t want what happened there to dampen what we were able to accomplish today.”

Can you describe the emotions of losing last year’s game and today winning, any redemption or anything you might feel?

“The difference is, I mean, experience. I think losses, when you have losses that hurt, but you really understand the why, I think UCONN was a really well-oiled machine. If you didn’t have disruption and consistent disruption, you allow them to play as freely as they want to play and shoot as freely as they shoot, they’re very efficient and very, very good.”

“Our whole objective was to get them to shoot as inefficiently as possible, make them put the ball on the floor. Don’t give them as many catch-and-shoot opportunities. I thought our kids really locked into that. They were scrappy. They were in gap help. They were contesting shots. UCONN got back in the game. They were unbothered, right, by it. They knew what they had to do. I’m just proud. Quite honestly, the first time we played them last year, which was in February, I think, or January, then came back and played them in the national championship game, I didn’t know how we could come up with 25 points because they beat us by like 25 points the first time. You know, when you have an uphill battle, how you going to accumulate some points. We just didn’t have enough offensive firepower in the national championship game or the first time we played them in the regular season. This time I thought we had enough firepower from an offensive standpoint.”

“Then just from a defensive standpoint, this team has gotten better defensively in belief and utilizing their God-given abilities to lock in. I thought it was a performance that makes you super proud. When they’re able to execute, you can see it as a coach. Sometimes the players don’t see it. What they did was just they filled in all the gaps that were created out there. Just super proud of ’em.”

It is, I believe, three straight national championship games for you. Four in the last five or something like that. Each has its own story. In the big picture, does that have meaning for you in a moment like this?

“For me, I’m haunted by 2023. 2023, I’m haunted by that particular Final Four because of the players that we had and the season that we were having. It got upended. I never got a chance to coach the Freshies anymore. We won it the following year. But that particular group was pretty special. I’m still haunted by it. For me, if we ever get the opportunity to be in that position again, which we were today, we’re going to lay it on the line, okay? We’re going to lay it on the line, figure out ways in which to win the game. I thought our kids locked into that.”

“They don’t know that about 2023. But anytime you get here, you want to give your best shot at winning and advancing.

Yesterday, you talked about how you were confident that Ta’Niya Latson was ready for this stage and the bright lights. She talked about how you were saying ‘meet the moment’. How did you see her do that tonight?

“I mean, you see players, they just have a different look. When they have it, it gives you confidence to know that they’re ready. Like, you know, some players that you got question marks about whether they’re ready to meet the moment. I didn’t have any of that with Ta’Niya. Didn’t have any of that with Raven [Johnson]. Joyce, none of that.”

“For Ta’Niya in particular, I think not Ta’Niya just made huge individual sacrifices. Wasn’t an All-American this year. I want her, if she’s not going to get the individual awards, I want her to be part of a national championship team.”

They cut it to four with about four and a half minutes left, and didn’t score a basket the rest of the way. Talk about the defense the rest of the game.

“Yeah, I just thought that we made it real difficult for them to get clean looks. We made them put the ball on the floor. That’s disruption to UCONN, because they’re a passing team, they like to assist. They dig it, 15 assists on 19 field goals. If they’re allowed to play that way throughout an entire game, they win, they win. I thought our players just locked?”

“Once we built a little lead, we got suggestions from coaches, should we change our defense, start switching everything. I’m like, ‘No, this is what is working. Let’s continue to do what’s working. We just created a lot of disruption.”

“I didn’t really realize they didn’t score a point in the last four or five minutes. I was just really concentrating on coaching our team up and just trying to score more points because they can generate points in a short period of time.”

People often talk about you. How much of this run is a direct reflection of your players and the culture you’ve been able to command on and off the court?

“I mean, here is what we do. I love basketball. Like, it’s my passion. It is the very thing I don’t cheat on. I’ve been that way growing up in the projects in Philly. I’ve had people come in and out of my life. Basketball wasn’t one of them. Then my experiences of loving up on the game. The return is tenfold. My cup runneth over when it comes to just what basketball has meant to me. I coach from that. I coach really from the love of what basketball can do for you, can do for your families, do for creating young people who will go out in the world and lessons and success stories that make you valuable to whatever situation you’re going to be in.”

“I’m just so happy that we got the victories to help keep young people confident in knowing that the sacrifices and the hard work that they put into it, you know, you win some of ’em. You don’t win all of ’em, but you win some of ’em.”

In the first half of the game, you had Raven Johnson at 5’9″ matched up with Sarah Strong. What was the strategy behind that? How would you describe her performance?

“Well, I mean, we went to a smaller lineup just to match what they were doing out there. I mean, Raven thrives on any matchup, right? Sarah Strong is not the tallest player that she guarded. We were put in the position where she guarded Kentucky’s big, [Clara] Strack. We know she’s fearless when it comes to who she’s guarding. She takes really great pride in not letting people score on her. When you have a guard like that that has elite defensive skills, you let ’em be great.”

You had I think eight personal fouls in that game. Could you speak to how well your team defended the basket without putting them on the free-throw line?

“I thought our gap help was great. I thought we were really disciplined in chasing off the screens, not shooting, being in the play, right? We never let UCONN get ahead of the possession. We were able to dictate like that, you get in a good defensive position. I thought it was great. It was actually far greater than I had envisioned.”

Even beyond the exchange we saw at the end of the game between you and Geno. There was a moment in the fourth quarter, Geno was evaluating your communication style with officials. What is your response to that exchange at the end of the game and his evaluation criticism of your communication styles with officials?

“I think that’s a Geno question.”

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Your players were saying you were pretty mad or animated at halftime. What was your message to them? What were you fired up about? How did you see them respond?

“You really don’t get these opportunities very often. You don’t. So you’ve got to meet the moment. Like, if we lost this game, I know our players would have been mad at themselves because they’re very capable. Like play to your capabilities. Play to the habits that we’ve had all season long. If you can do that and end up losing, you can swallow it a little bit better. But when you don’t meet the moment, and you don’t play to your ability, it always leaves you skeptical. It just doesn’t stop there. Then you start pointing the finger about, ‘Was I put in the best position to win a basketball game?’ You’ve got to get under their skin a little bit because you’ve got to jolt ’em out of the state that they’re in to get them back to who they are, like who they are.”

“What you saw in the second half is who they are on both sides of the basketball, just making plays to get it done to help us get a win.”

For all you said to them at halftime, was part of you encouraged that you didn’t play as well as you could and you’re right there in that game?

“I mean, once I got out what I wanted to see, which is meet the moment, then you decompress, and you just have give ’em information that is valuable. My information was, like, we’re right there. Hold a team like UConn to 26 points, you’re doing some really great things. I just thought our offense, we were just not making the right decisions. We just had to make quicker decisions. We had to put ourselves in positions where we got to play a little bit faster because they slowed it down. They pressed us. They made it hard for us to outlet the ball. We walked it up, played half-court basketball. Once we broke into getting the lead when we started playing a little bit faster, getting the ball up the floor, actually trying to score, try to stay in transition a little bit longer than we were in the first half.”

Both you and your players talked about the concept of being locked in. Can you tell us more what exactly that means?

“Being locked in is really understanding what the game plan is, really understanding personnel on our opponents, and executing it. Like, you can know and not execute it. For us, we knew, we executed. We were deciding whether or not we were going to watch film last night. I let Ray [Raven Johnson] decide. Ray, do you think we need to get another film session in? Ray is like…. We did another film session. You could see the players really lock into what needed to get done. Probably after game 20 in the regular season, some of ’em are half paying attention because it’s just routine. But when you get to this level, you want to see a little bit more. You want see all the players locked in and all the players asking questions about whatever the game plan is. That’s being locked in.”

From a culture-building perspective, what is it like getting this win in front of former and future players like Aaliyah Boston and Jerzy Robinson?

“I can’t speak on her [Jerzy], right? But Aaliyah, I’m always happy to see Aaliyah. Again, at the 2023 Final Four, she was a part of that. Every time that we see each other, I think it drives her a little bit, too. So I’m just proud. I know she’s proud. I know she is proud of every team that’s come after her, knowing what she went through and knowing what they’re going through. I’m proud when we are able to make our alumni proud.”

In the fourth quarter, I think there was an extended period where Raven was on the bench. I know you speak highly of how she controls tempo, is a coach on the floor. If you’re willing to share, why did she sit for that extended period?

“One, I thought Mouse, Maddy McDaniel, did a really great job. Sometimes when you’re coaching a game, you’re looking for a unit that can play well together. The more time that we could have given Raven on the bench, the fresher she was going to be when she returned.”

“I mean, Raven’s the first one that will tell you let her stay. She’s doing great, let’s not… That’s the way we operate. It’s about what unit’s working together. Once you have a strong enough culture, when you can sit your All-American point guard for an extended period of time in the fourth quarter, and they really understand it is about winning. Raven’s the best at really understanding. She only wants to win.”

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