Dawn Staley on championship team: “It’s built through trusting the process”
South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley reflects on how she built a championship team and comments on the advantages and disadvantages of having such a deep roster.
Video Transcript
DAWN STALEY: To have a roster that goes 9-10 deep is-- it's a privilege. It really is. But it has to be developed slowly and the right way. Like, there's a lot of trust that has to be built because there are some games that some of them won't play a whole lot, especially the people that's coming off the bench.
I mean, Chloe Kitts went up, and down, and all around. And then finally, she settled in today. They have a really good game. But she had to come off the bench at times because of not what she-- not what she wasn't doing, but it was more about what somebody was doing and doing well. And that can shake your confidence.
But at the same time, you have to let her the way you build trust in our coaching staff, it's the same way your competitor's building trust. I think Milaysia Fulwiley has been very patient with us to be able to have a household name coming off the bench playing maybe-- probably less than 20 minutes a game, when she could have gone anywhere else in the country. And they've given her the ball time and time again.
But winning the National Championship will allow us and that relationship to continue to grow. Because I know she really wanted this. And I would imagine that come as early as next year, she's going to want to be a starter She's going to want to be-- play more minutes. She's going to want a lot of different things because she got the big one. So now she'll maybe want to concentrate on some individual awards. And I appreciate her sacrifice.
So it's everybody. It's Sania Faegin, who-- I mean, she's a junior. And she's probably started less than 10 times. But she came up crucial this game-- like, really. And I know she's probably wanted to play a lot more throughout the season. But I hold her to her standard. I hold her to her personal and individual standard to-- sometimes that equates to 6 minutes, or 5 minutes, or less.
And it doesn't feel good, but in order for us to do what we do today means she's got to meet her standard. And we don't sacrifice that. So it's built through trusting the process. It's built through really high-level communication.