Dawn Staley | Tokyo 2020 Olympic Profile
Team USA women's basketball coach Dawn Staley shares her strategies for success at the Olympic level.
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAWN STALEY: And with USA basketball, you know, they're, you know, the players are in that space where they, they know, they read each other. They have an understanding of how to play. And you just kind of give them their space. And then you're, as a coach, you're looking at it like, OK, well, you know, how do, how do we get them to delve deeper in our options in our offenses?
In college, if there are four options in an offense, they have to be named four different things. For the Olympic and pro level, you just tell them, hey, this happens if-- they take this away, then you go deeper into it, and it's understood on that level. You just have to get our, our players to be a little bit more patient because we'll need it at some point. Whereas in college, they have no patience. They don't, you know, they want, they want it now.
You know, you've experienced any type of USA basketball team or competition, you'll understand how everybody is, you know, everybody's coming at you with their very best. And, and you can't take plays off. I mean, it's why we play, it's why we sacrifice, it's why it is gold or failure every time that we step on the floor. It's the norm for us to want to beat every team and every opponent that we, that we face. And that's including in this upcoming Olympic games.