MINNEAPOLIS — Days after her South Carolina Gamecocks swept to a fourth Final Four, North Philadelphia’s Dawn Staley swept a pair of major coaching honors: the Naismith and U.S. Basketball Writers’ women’s Coach of the Year awards.
Led by star big Aliyah Boston and guards Zia Cooke and Destanni Henderson, South Carolina has a 33-2 record this season, including 12 wins over nationally ranked opponents — Connecticut, N.C. State and Stanford among them — by an average of 13.5 points.
The Gamecocks won the Southeastern Conference regular season title, then were upset in the SEC tournament championship game by Kentucky 64-62. Their only other loss was at Missouri on Dec. 30, 70-69 on an overtime buzzer-beater that’s been one of the season’s most viral moments.
That résumé landed South Carolina the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, and it romped to the Final Four with wins over Howard (79-21), Miami (49-33), North Carolina (69-61) and a Cinderella in Creighton (80-50).
The Gamecocks have also been the No. 1-ranked team in the Associated Press’ Top 25 poll for the entire season.
Among the luminaries saluting Staley on Wednesday was one of her former star players, A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces, who’s in town with the USA Basketball women’s national team for a training camp.
“There’s things that go [on] in that locker room that no one will ever know, but the little things that she does, she deserves Coach of the Year,” Wilson told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “A lot of people doubted her, a lot of people probably didn’t want her to get it, but she’s executed and she’s proven that she is the best this year. So I love that for her.”
