Dawn Staley's standards demand South Carolina women's basketball do more than just win

COLUMBIA — In a program that carries expectations as high as that of South Carolina women’s basketball, sometimes a 19-point home win isn’t good enough.

Despite leaving the floor as 85-66 victors over Mississippi State in their SEC home opener, coach Dawn Staley wasn’t satisfied with the Gamecocks' performance Sunday. Even in a commanding win — they held a 20-point lead for nearly all of the fourth quarter, and their biggest lead was 27 points — they have their eyes set on being better.

“We didn’t go out there and execute the way that we should,” junior guard Bree Hall said. “We have really high standards, and I feel like we didn’t really meet them today.”

No. 1 South Carolina is 14-0 overall and 2-0 in the SEC, but Staley said her team’s performance Sunday wasn’t good enough to maintain that record.

“We did enough to win a basketball game, but probably not enough to win this league,” she said. “We played undisciplined and uncharacteristically on both sides of the basketball.”

South Carolina struggled in aspects of the game it typically doesn’t.

The Gamecocks grabbed only one more board than Ole Miss did, despite averaging 17 more rebounds per game than their opponents this season.

“(Mississippi State) got 22 offensive rebounds. That’s effort,” Staley said. “We probably had a lot more opportunities to rebound the ball offensively that we didn’t take advantage of.”

South Carolina also missed 20 of its 34 layup attempts, some of which came against contact down low. Many of them, however, were routine layups that didn’t go in.

Senior center Kamilla Cardoso, while recording her eighth double-double of the season and tying a career best with six assists, missed five layup opportunities.

Staley, however, said Sunday represented new developments for the Gamecocks’ leading scorer.

“It was different than her normal,” she said. “She did some step-throughs, she was aggressive, she took more shots than she normally would take. I like it. They didn’t go in at a normal clip, but it’s a starting point.”

When South Carolina needed to focus, Hall came through.

Despite maintaining a lead of at least five points for most of the second and third quarters, South Carolina's sloppy play allowed the Bulldogs to build confidence. They threatened to work their way back into the game by cutting their deficit to single digits.

Instead, Hall hit back-to-back 3-pointers in the last few minutes of the third quarter and powering the Gamecocks back into a comfortable lead.

Hall’s buckets represented a final turning point. The 10-point advantage expanded to 16 at the end of the third, then quickly up to 23 points in the final quarter.

“There have been some very upset moments in my career just this year,” Hall said. “I’m really proud of how well I bounced back from it. This game is a mental game first, and I feel like from the start of the season until now I’ve had a strong mental (aspect).”

Staley said she’s proud of how comfortable Hall is on both sides of the ball and how she has been playing disciplined basketball. Hall led the Gamecocks with 15 points, one of four scorers in double figures.

Staley said the team will get back on track. The question, she said, is how quickly.

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“It wasn’t our normal postgame talk,” she said. “It was somewhat of a buildup to this. We tried various ways to get them back, but you’ve got to jolt them back at this point.”

Hall said the game was a chance for them to learn some lessons and adjust quickly ahead of its next game. South Carolina will travel to face Missouri at 8 p.m. on Thursday.

“I think it was one of those days,” Hall said. “I think we’re going to take it on the chin and bounce back.”

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: For Dawn Staley, South Carolina basketball is more than 19-point win