It’s March, which means it’s once again time for madness in college basketball. And if you’re a fan of the University of South Carolina’s women’s basketball team and its coach, Dawn Staley, it’s time for more whining about how her team wins simply because it has all of the best players.
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.
Staley’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.
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 Staley’s team as a reason why they didn’t win.
The low-wattage shade would better have been expressed this way: “We couldn’t possibly win. South Carolina’s ball girls are All-Americans!”
I am a proud graduate of the University of South Carolina and a fan of its sports teams, including Staley’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 Kentucky’s team, and depth was a factor. But smothering perimeter defense, not the number of recruiting stars, won that game for South Carolina.
Still, because I had heard that whine not just from Kentucky’s coach but from LSU’s coach and Iowa’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 it’s not been Staley’s South Carolina squad. No, it’s been Geno Auriemma’s University of Connecticut Huskies.
In the 10 years from 2015 through 2024, Auriemma has signed ESPN’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 A’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.
What we’re seeing with the whining about South Carolina isn’t new, and it’s not limited to the women’s game. I remember well some of the complaints John Thompson’s Georgetown Hoyas got back in the day, complaints that were…different…from 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.
Staley’s current team — built on the backs of accomplished high schoolers but without the almighty firepower of a No. 1 overall recruit — is not likely to win a national championship this season. But that won’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.