Southeastern Conference women’s basketball “Coach of the Year” Dawn Staley has her team right where she wants it to be. After winning the outright regular season championship, the head coach of the Gamecocks is looking forward to checking off another box in USC’s list of season objectives, an SEC tournament title. The march towards that goal begins on Friday in Nashville where the top seeded Gamecocks will face either Arkansas or Missouri in the tournament quarterfinals at 1pm ET.
After claiming a trophy case full of SEC awards including, “Player of the Year” and “Defensive Player of the Year” nods going to Aliyah Boston, along with Boston and Destanni Henderson being honored as first team all-league performers, USC is certainly the odds-on favorite to claim another tournament championship.
On Tuesday, Staley met with the media to look ahead to the postseason and discuss her team’s mindset heading into the weekend. The veteran head coach also noted that everyone should be available for the tournament, including center Kamilla Cardoso. The transfer from Syracuse missed the Gamecocks’ regular season finale at Mississippi with what USC described as an “upper body injury”. Cardoso is tied for second in rebounds per game and is third on the team in blocked shots.
