It’s March, which suggests it’s as soon as once more time for insanity in faculty basketball. And if you happen to’re a fan of the College of South Carolina’s ladies’s basketball staff and its coach, Daybreak Staley, it’s time for extra whining about how her staff wins just because it has all the greatest gamers.
Not as a result of Staley one way or the other convinces younger ladies to be part of a collective when being high canine at a program brings in social media clout and large sponsorship {dollars}. Not as a result of Staley and her workers develop the gamers this system indicators into faculty stars who win.
Staley’s success – and the complaints it has generated – underscores an unlucky truism in faculty sports activities: the acceptance of dominance from a program run by a white man and the questioning of dominance from a program run by a Black girl.
At the very least twice this season – after South Carolina defeated LSU and after South Carolina defeated Kentucky – opposing coaches alluded to the variety of highly-regarded gamers on Staley’s staff as a purpose why they didn’t win.
The low-wattage shade would higher have been expressed this fashion: “We couldn’t probably win. South Carolina’s ball women are All-People!”
I’m a proud graduate of the College of South Carolina and a fan of its sports activities groups, together with Staley’s three-time nationwide championship hoops staff.
After the Kentucky coach whined about how, with the sport in opposition to South Carolina nonetheless shut, Staley was capable of trot out All-American after All-American, carrying out his staff, which crumbled late and misplaced. Definitely, South Carolina has a deeper staff than Kentucky’s staff, and depth was an element. However smothering perimeter protection, not the variety of recruiting stars, gained that sport for South Carolina.
Nonetheless, as a result of I had heard that whine not simply from Kentucky’s coach however from LSU’s coach and Iowa’s coach earlier than that, I made a decision to return a decade and see who actually has been getting all the nice gamers.
Certainly, there was a program sucking up a large amount of the highest highschool expertise. Nevertheless it’s not been Staley’s South Carolina squad. No, it’s been Geno Auriemma’s College of Connecticut Huskies.
Within the 10 years from 2015 via 2024, Auriemma has signed ESPN’s No. 1 general participant an astonishing six instances! How good are high general recruits? Assume Paige Bueckers. Assume Juju Watkins. Each are anticipated to be high picks within the WNBA draft once they go professional.
South Carolina constructed a statue in honor of the lone No. 1 general recruit in its historical past, the incomparable A’ja Wilson, who helped Staley win her first nationwide championship for the Gamecocks, was drafted No. 1 general into the WNBA and has since gained three MVPs and two championships. THAT is the kind of influence a high general recruit can have.
Presently, Auriemma has three high general recruits in his beginning 5. In 4 of the previous 10 years, his staff has landed not simply the highest general participant however a minimum of one different high 10 recruit, too.
Staley talked about none of that when UConn smoked South Carolina in Columbia a couple of weeks in the past. She complimented the Huskies and famous that her staff wanted to enhance.
What we’re seeing with the whining about South Carolina isn’t new, and it’s not restricted to the ladies’s sport. I bear in mind properly a few of the complaints John Thompson’s Georgetown Hoyas received again within the day, complaints that have been…totally different…from what one heard concerning the dominant mens packages on the College of Kentucky, the College of North Carolina and Duke College – all stellar packages led by white males.
Staley’s present staff — constructed on the backs of completed excessive schoolers however with out the almighty firepower of a No. 1 general recruit — shouldn’t be more likely to win a nationwide championship this season. However that gained’t diminish the legacy she is constructing at South Carolina, neither is that legacy outlined merely by signing high highschool gamers and rolling the ball onto the courtroom. It doesn’t matter what the haters say.