What Shea Ralph, Dawn Staley said about relationship after Vanderbilt-South Carolina basketball
The first thing that stood out to Shea Ralph before her Vanderbilt women's basketball team took on Dawn Staley's South Carolina is that Staley shook the hands of everyone on the Commodores' bench, even those behind it.
Ralph, in her third season rebuilding Vanderbilt, and Staley, the two-time national championship coach with the Gamecocks, have a lot of mutual respect for each other, something that was apparent before, during and after South Carolina's 91-74 win Sunday at Colonial Life Arena.
The Commodores' point total was the second-most by a Gamecocks home opponent this season. Vanderbilt (17-4, 4-3 SEC) is projected as a No. 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament by both ESPN and Her Hoop Stats, while No. 1 South Carolina (19-0, 7-0) is the national championship favorite.
Ralph, 45, remembers watching Staley, 53, in the ACC Tournament as a player at Virginia from 1988 to 1992. When Ralph was an assistant at UConn from 2008 to 2021, her Huskies faced off against Staley nine times.
"There hasn't been anybody in the country that's texted me more than her on days where, our team has really been struggling the past couple of years," Ralph told reporters in the postgame news conference. "And when I see her in meetings, when I see her before games, she'll reach out. That matters to me . . .
"Dawn has defined what is possible in our sport, both as a player and a coach. I'm lucky to be a colleague. I'm grateful to compete against her because she's a competitor. But more than anything, I'm thankful for her leadership because even as a competitor, she's been somebody that's truly helped me in my position as we try to do some special things ourselves at Vanderbilt."
Staley has been complimentary of Ralph when the two have faced off. In 2023, when South Carolina won by 48 at Memorial Gymnasium, Staley said that Vanderbilt was going to become a "team to be reckoned with" under Ralph. She had a similar sentiment after Sunday's matchup.
"I like the fact that she can coach and she didn't have a whole lot of talent, a lot of injuries, she found a way to get her kids to play for 40 minutes no matter what the score was and now that she has talent, you can see she's going to find herself right in the top of our league," Staley said. " . . . I like scouting them, they move you around, they make you scheme to beat them and she's a young head coach that came in our league and she's been impressive."
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Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: What Dawn Staley, Shea Ralph said after Vanderbilt-South Carolina
