CLEVELAND — As Daybreak Staley stood earlier than her crew throughout a gathering an evening earlier than the nationwide championship recreation, she took a swig of water and started to cough.
“You about to cry, Coach?” a participant known as from the again of the room.
“No,” she stated after which paused. “However I’d on Sunday if we win.”
The gamers laughed, however her assistants sensed sincerity with these phrases. They’ve seen the burden Staley has carried this yr as she has adjusted to a crew that’s youthful and looser. A crew that generally wouldn’t reply to textual content messages or would present up late to conferences. A crew that’s so in contrast to the group that graduated a season in the past.
Staley has jokingly referred to this season’s roster as a day care, and nobody within the Gamecocks locker room actually rebuffs that time. They put on it as a badge of honor with their very own distinctive humorousness. And but, they received and received and received on the ground as they chased simply the tenth undefeated season in ladies’s faculty basketball historical past.
The coaches huddled on the sideline with a minute to go, with the 87-75 win over Iowa assured, the clock simply performative at this level and the nationwide championship trophy all however added to their rising case. Staley’s tears started to fall. They continued to fall as she embraced her coaches and gamers, and because the clock lastly expired. They continued throughout her postgame interview on the court docket and as she knelt over to catch her breath. She didn’t attempt to cease them. She needed to deal with the feelings in actual time.
“It was emotional for me due to the way it ended final yr,” Staley stated. “It’s heavy, it’s heavy. You carry the burden of each single one among your gamers, all of the coaches and workers members that put a lot into our crew. And it’s a heavy load to be undefeated, to complete the job. And also you get emotional since you simply need that for them, and also you’re completely satisfied that you simply’re capable of — as a result of just one crew wins the nationwide championship.”
Daybreak Staley overcome with emotion after South Carolina natty win 🥹
Led the Gamecocks to an ideal season 👏 pic.twitter.com/8oLjeIrgwM
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 7, 2024
Final yr, the Gamecocks weren’t that one crew. They may’ve been the very best crew and most proficient crew. South Carolina led the rankings from preseason by way of the match and because the overwhelming favourite to get the job carried out. However the Gamecocks didn’t. They fell quick, stunningly, to Iowa. That senior class, which went 129-9 over 4 seasons and misplaced simply three video games whole of their junior and senior seasons (by a complete of seven factors) did all the pieces proper, and but, they didn’t finish their careers with a win. They ended it like 350 different faculties — in a loss.
“Final yr rocked me,” Staley stated. “It rocked me.”
In Staley’s thoughts, that didn’t fully compute.
How can a crew that does all the pieces proper not additionally win the nationwide title? How was she not capable of get that group — gamers who by no means gave Staley a purpose to complain or wince — over the end line? How may the very best crew Staley had ever had not get that championship?
“I feel it drove her,” assistant coach Lisa Boyer stated. “We nonetheless discuss we didn’t recover from the hill with that group. They have been so proficient and such a robust unit. … It was onerous to grasp.”
Staley was persevering with to course of the ending of final season when this season started. A crew with 5 new starters. A switch from Oregon. Nobody who averaged greater than 20 minutes a recreation, and never a single participant who had greater than three profession begins. In so some ways, it was the alternative of what she was working with final season.
Staley has all the time talked concerning the look, sound and really feel of a crew. And this one? It was loud and foolish. The gamers talked, Staley says, about nothing specifically. It was not simply in contrast to final yr’s group. They have been in contrast to some other crew she had ever had. Not simply in among the mechanisms of how they performed on the ground, however particularly off the court docket.
In workers conferences, they’d use the phrases “pivot” and “meet them the place they’re” greater than they ever had earlier than. Staley talked about how, with such a younger crew, the coaches have been going to have to be each coach and captain, in a method. It was extra work, additional power. They have been constructing the airplane because it taxied down the runway.
“If we might’ve stayed the best way we have been with the freshies,” assistant coach Jolette Regulation stated, “it simply wouldn’t have labored.”
“It’s push and pull, however the usual stays the identical,” Boyer added. “You must meet them midway.”
That push and pull meant realizing that gamers have been going to take 3s in transition. (“When have you ever ever seen a Daybreak Staley group take a 3 in transition?” stated Khadijah Classes, a former participant and assistant coach. “By no means.”) It meant eliminating the rule of no telephones the evening earlier than video games. It meant giving gamers 4 days off after the SEC title recreation. “She was like, ‘Guys, that is what they want. They want area. They should recharge their batteries,’” Regulation stated. “That’s simply having the ability to perceive the make-up and really feel of what we now have.”
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Junior Bree Corridor stated she didn’t actually recognize how a lot Staley had adjusted to them till the Gamecocks’ swing to North Carolina and Duke a month into the season. Whereas at a crew dinner at The Cheesecake Manufacturing unit, Corridor requested the crew’s director of basketball operations, Ariana Moore, whether or not she and the opposite gamers may order cheesecake for dessert.
“The final two years, when somebody stated, ‘You’ll be able to ask Coach,’ it means, ‘don’t even ask,’” Corridor stated. “Don’t even trouble.”
However Corridor did. Staley relented. The gamers bought their cheesecake.
Within the midst of a confetti bathe and tears, these are the proof factors of perfection: Telephones, days off, area, recharged batteries, cheesecake. It’s the very best proof that Staley, 2 1/2 many years into her teaching profession, is way from completed. The tears are the proof of the load she carried by way of a yr that examined her each day.
“That is in all probability the primary time in my profession {that a} crew has extra stamina in sure areas. Like far more stamina than I may self-discipline them for,” Staley stated. “So I’ve discovered to not combat sure battles. Not core worth battles, not the core precept of who we’re and who I stand for, however simply that their id, they play unfastened. They play free.”
Daybreak Staley is feeling it 💃
🎥 @YahooSportspic.twitter.com/1cUnegLyop
— The Athletic WBB (@TheAthleticWBB) April 7, 2024
A yr in the past — after 4 seasons of a crew doing all the pieces proper — the journey didn’t finish in celebration. A yr in the past, it didn’t finish with a trophy hoisted and a internet draped throughout Staley’s shoulders. However Sunday, she climbed the ladder after a a lot totally different journey from ever earlier than, a a lot more durable journey in some ways. It was one which included extra pivoting and adjusting, a check each day and reckoning with the ending to final season that rocked her to her core. The sight, sound and really feel of this yr have been fully totally different, however so too was the ending. In some ways, Staley’s personal sight, sound and really feel are totally different as a result of of this yr.
The Gamecocks won’t have carried out all the pieces proper, won’t have even come shut, however they have been one thing else that’s extra uncommon: They have been good.
(Photograph: Gregory Shamus / Getty Photos)