After getting 'smacked' by UCLA, Dawn Staley and powerhouse South Carolina look toward future and how they'll regroup
PHOENIX — If there were ever more definitive proof that South Carolina is the program atop the basketball universe, it’s that they’re now saying the same things as Connecticut in the decades before them. “We do feel the pressure,” head coach Dawn Staley said. “We're used to winning and we're used to winning at a pretty high clip.
How long you sustain that? We don't know. We just try to wake up every day and just be better than we were the day before.
” They weren’t better than they were on Friday , and it cost them in a second consecutive NCAA championship game. The Gamecocks were largely uncompetitive in a 79-51 loss to UCLA at Mortgage Matchup Arena in Phoenix on Sunday, delivering the Bruins the first NCAA championship in program history . They also won an AIAW title in 1978.
To reach this far and falter is significantly short of the South Carolina standard. The Gamecocks are not used to losing. They entered the game 206-15 over the last six years, all of which ended in the Final Four.
They have two titles in that span, joining the program’s first championship win in 2017. Unlike UCLA, South Carolina isn't losing a handful of star seniors, with Joyce Edwards (left) and Tessa Johnson (right) among the potential returnees. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images) Sarah Stier via Getty Images “To get here is hard,” Staley said.
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