Dawn Staley Reveals Message to Team After South Carolina's Loss to UCLA
The South Carolina Gamecocks women's basketball team suffered its first defeat in 43 games on Sunday after a 77-62 loss to the UCLA Bruins.
UCLA made it clear that they deserve the basketball world's respect and should be considered one of the country's top teams in what was a dominant win over the defending national champions.
Legendary Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley has been at the center of online discussion after the loss, as fans are questioning some of her lineup choices (such as playing Gamecocks standout MiLaysia Fulwiley for only three minutes) and wondering what went wrong against UCLA.
Staley had a postgame press conference after the defeat. When asked what her message to her team was after the game, she said, "My message was 'This is what we usually do to teams. It doesn't feel good when you're on the receiving end of it. But you also know you got beat by a great team,'" per the No Cap Space WBB YouTube channel.
"Beautiful basketball by UCLA," Staley added. "Beautiful on both sides. I'm on the opposite side of it, but you can't help but to love up on it because it was fluid on both sides of the ball. They wanted it. I thought our team fought, but we ran into a buzzsaw today."
We would imagine that a loss like this will serve as a wake-up call for the Gamecocks, who haven't lost since April 2023, when they faced Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in the NCAA tournament semifinals.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.