This is what they came here for.
Not just the transfers, or the freshmen, or the upperclassmen who built this program. This is what Dawn Staley came here for, and now she’s just one game away.
After playing in three Final Fours from 1990-92 at Virginia, including a heartbreaking overtime loss in the championship game, Staley is playing for it all once again, ready to fulfill her lifelong dream.
When Staley left Temple to take the South Carolina job, she was taking on a rebuilding process, and the winning didn’t come as quickly as it did in Philadelphia. Staley’s Gamecocks didn’t have a winning record in SEC play until her fourth season at the helm, when she also cracked the NCAA Tournament for the first time with her new team, reaching the Sweet 16.
“It's the platform that we needed to compete and win for national championships,” Staley said of South Carolina. “We don't know it's always going to work out that way, but I knew we had the platform.”
Between an SEC athletic department and a hotbed of women’s basketball talent, Staley flourished, bringing Aleighsa Welch from Goose Creek, Tiffany Mitchell from Charlotte and Alaina Coates and A’ja Wilson from the Columbia area to take the program to new heights.
“I would say when we signed Aleighsa Welch is when things started to take off, not just from a basketball perspective, but from a chemistry perspective,” Staley said. “It felt more like family. It felt like our culture was taking place, which would allow us to bring in better players, better character kids.”
Staley often talks about bringing in players who love the game of basketball and want to play professionally, which she did with Welch and Mitchell, as both were selected in the WNBA Draft.
But back to now.
Wilson, the only one of those four local stars who will play in Sunday’s final, has trouble putting into words what bringing a championship home to Columbia would mean to her.
“I just think it’s something special when you’re able to bring a championship to your hometown… To bring so much joy to people within your state in such a positive way, it’s something special,” Wilson said.
It may be a 3-hour drive from Columbia to Suwanee, Georgia, hometown of Kaela Davis, but a championship would the completion of the Georgia Tech transfer’s journey.
“It’s definitely why I made the choice to come to South Carolina,” Davis said.
Davis has said all season that the opportunity to compete for a title was a major factor in her decision, and now she’s just one game away from capping her first season in garnet in black by cutting down the nets.
But Wilson wouldn’t have a chance to bring a title home, and Davis wouldn’t be able to finish her mission, if it weren’t for the woman with a dream.