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Whether or not you name it irony or coincidence, the very best group taking part in throughout faculty basketball’s largest second throughout a month that’s devoted to the historical past of girls makes an excessive amount of sense. Sure, all of us consider the boys’s sport after we consider March Insanity. And sure, the males’s sport brings in all the cash. However, commerce and a spotlight can’t get you what Daybreak Staley’s group has — domination.
James Brown’s lyrics have materialized on a basketball courtroom.
Sporting an ideal 32-0 report and led by the solely Black coach within the historical past of the sport to ever win a number of NCAA Tournaments, Staley’s Girl Gamecocks would be the finest group you see on TV this month.
When No. 1 South Carolina takes on No. 16 Norfolk State on Friday afternoon, the Spartans will simply be the most recent group to exit the ground with a loss on their report. They don’t have an opportunity. And that’s no disrespect to their program, it’s simply that nobody has had considered one of late in opposition to South Carolina.
South Carolina’s résumé speaks for itself
Since 2015, that is the Girl Gamecocks’ résumé: Closing 4 (2015), Candy Sixteen (2016), Nationwide Championship (2017), Elite Eight (2018), Candy Sixteen (2019), Closing 4 (2021), Nationwide Championship (2022). South Carolina has misplaced a complete of two video games the previous two seasons, as they have been 36-2 final yr.
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And it’s not like they’re feeling the stress of getting into the event undefeated.
“I simply talked to our gamers about this right this moment,” Staley mentioned final month. “We don’t want a loss to make a push. Final yr did we want it? Possibly. I don’t know. But it surely occurred. And it was a push that helped us.
“They’re not coming into follow considering, ‘Oh, we’re undefeated,” Staley defined about her group. “It’s not one thing within the forefront of their minds. Even after we performed as shut as we did within the time beyond regulation sport at Ole Miss, they by no means flinched. They didn’t give it some thought. They only went into the mode of, ‘We’ve simply bought to do no matter it takes to win, nonetheless many minutes that’s.’”
Solely 4 applications have accomplished undefeated seasons
In keeping with ESPN, 9 groups from 4 applications in NCAA ladies’s basketball historical past have completed a season undefeated: the Texas Longhorns (1986), UConn Huskies (1995, 2002, 2009, 2010, 2014, 2016), Tennessee (1998) and the Baylor Bears (2012). South Carolina is trying to flip that 9 into a ten and put its program into the historical past books.
In faculty basketball, particularly within the ladies’s sport, the very best applications have all the time been led by the very best coaches. Sure, star gamers matter, however the play callers have been those which have survived the take a look at of time. Tennessee had Pat Summit. UConn has Geno Auriemma. Notre Dame had Muffet McGraw. And LSU and Baylor have had Kim Mulkey. In Staley, South Carolina not solely has a coach that can take a stand and has made historical past, however in addition they have somebody who ought to have already damaged down a barrier as the primary feminine coach within the NBA — not Becky Hammon.
“I include lots of credentials,” Staley advised the New York Occasions in 2021 when she was interviewed for the Portland Path Blazers head teaching job. “I absolutely have the boldness. I absolutely can stand in entrance of males and lead them. First-team All-Stars. MVPs. I’m OK with that.
“I haven’t coached within the league,” Staley defined. “However you already know what? I’m a fast be taught. I’m a fast be taught.”
March is a month that ensures uncertainty. However in the case of the 2023 NCAA Event, the South Carolina ladies’s basketball group is the most secure choose.
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