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Kill the Hate…Give Dawn Staley Her Flowers This March Madness

The University of South Carolina's head basketball coach deserves every bit of the props her detractors refuse to give her.

Itโ€™s March, which means itโ€™s once again time for madness in college basketball. And if youโ€™re a fan of the University of South Carolinaโ€™s womenโ€™s basketball team and its coach, Dawn Staley, itโ€™s time for more whining about how her team wins simply because it has all of the best players.

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Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?
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Not because Staley somehow convinces young women to be a part of a collective when being top dog at a program brings in social media clout and big sponsorship dollars. Not because Staley and her staff develop the players the program signs into college stars who win.

Staleyโ€™s success - and the complaints it has generated - underscores an unfortunate truism in college sports: the acceptance of dominance from a program run by a white man and the questioning of dominance from a program run by a Black woman.

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At least twice this season - after South Carolina defeated LSU and after South Carolina defeated Kentucky - opposing coaches alluded to the number of highly-regarded players on Staleyโ€™s team as a reason why they didnโ€™t win.

The low-wattage shade would better have been expressed this way: โ€œWe couldnโ€™t possibly win. South Carolinaโ€™s ball girls are All-Americans!โ€

I am a proud graduate of the University of South Carolina and a fan of its sports teams, including Staleyโ€™s three-time national championship hoops team.

After the Kentucky coach whined about how, with the game against South Carolina still close, Staley was able to trot out All-American after All-American, wearing out his team, which crumbled late and lost. Certainly, South Carolina has a deeper team than Kentuckyโ€™s team, and depth was a factor. But smothering perimeter defense, not the number of recruiting stars, won that game for South Carolina.

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Still, because I had heard that whine not just from Kentuckyโ€™s coach but from LSUโ€™s coach and Iowaโ€™s coach before that, I decided to go back a decade and see who really has been getting all of the great players.

Indeed, there has been a program sucking up a great amount of the top high school talent. But itโ€™s not been Staleyโ€™s South Carolina squad. No, itโ€™s been Geno Auriemmaโ€™s University of Connecticut Huskies.

In the 10 years from 2015 through 2024, Auriemma has signed ESPNโ€™s No. 1 overall player an astonishing six times! How good are top overall recruits? Think Paige Bueckers. Think Juju Watkins. Both are expected to be top picks in the WNBA draft when they go pro.

South Carolina built a statue in honor of the lone No. 1 overall recruit in its history, the incomparable Aโ€™ja Wilson, who helped Staley win her first national championship for the Gamecocks, was drafted No. 1 overall into the WNBA and has since won three MVPs and two championships. THAT is the type of impact a top overall recruit can have.

Currently, Auriemma has three top overall recruits in his starting five. In four of the past 10 years, his team has landed not just the top overall player but at least one other top 10 recruit, too.

Staley mentioned none of that when UConn smoked South Carolina in Columbia a few weeks ago. She complimented the Huskies and noted that her team needed to improve.

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What weโ€™re seeing with the whining about South Carolina isnโ€™t new, and itโ€™s not limited to the womenโ€™s game. I remember well some of the complaints John Thompsonโ€™s Georgetown Hoyas got back in the day, complaints that wereโ€ฆdifferentโ€ฆfrom what one heard about the dominant mens programs at the University of Kentucky, the University of North Carolina and Duke University - all stellar programs led by white men.

Staleyโ€™s current team โ€” built on the backs of accomplished high schoolers but without the almighty firepower of a No. 1 overall recruit โ€” is not likely to win a national championship this season. But that wonโ€™t diminish the legacy she is building at South Carolina, nor is that legacy defined merely by signing top high school players and rolling the ball onto the court. No matter what the haters say.

Straight From The Root

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