Dawn Staley lists down several sacrifices South Carolina has made to excel as a team: "We sacrifice having a national player of the year candidate"

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley spoke about her players' sacrifices to excel as a team and defend the national title this season. In Sunday's postgame press conference after the No. 2-ranked Gamecocks whipped the No. 13 Oklahoma Sooners, 101-60, Staley mentioned the individual accolades her players kissed goodbye to post an 18-1 record and 6-0 in the SEC.

"It means — I'm going tell you what it means — It means we sacrifice SEC player of the week," she said (8:52). "We sacrifice having a National Player of the Year candidate. We sacrifice possibly some All-Americans."

Dawn Staley pointed out that despite possibly missing the individual awards (except the All-American because the NCAA will be mandated to find one for the team who've won the national title), the team is locked in to make the Final Four and possibly the national championship game.

"We give that up but for the greater good of winning. And doing things that we need to do to get better as a team and doing things that promotes great basketball," she said (9:35).

This season, at least five South Carolina players have averaged at least 9.3 points per game and this is led by freshman Joyce Edwards, who has tallied 11.8 points per game. Te-Hina Paopao and MiLaysia Fulwiley are close behind at 11.1 ppg and 11.0 ppg respectively.

Chloe Kitts and Tessa Johnson are also close to double-digit averages, with Kitts averaging 9.6 an outing and Johnson scoring 9.3 per contest.

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Dawn Staley's 2023-24 Gamecocks also sport balanced scoring

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley believes having a team that doesn't have an All-American-caliber type of player and still doing well means the system the coach employs is effective.

"It's cool to have an All-American you know, a go-to player absolutely. But when you could do it without having one, you're really moving the needle," she said (9:58).

This season's team could be doing a similar feat as that of the 2023-24 Gamecocks team that went 38-0 and won the national championship, beating the Caitlin Clark-led Iowa Hawkeyes 87-75.

Six players finished with averages of at least 9.1 points, led by Brazilian center Kamilla Cardoso, who averaged 14.4 ppg. MiLaysia Fulwiley, who was a freshman at that time, tallied 11.7 per contest while Te-Hina Paopao finished with 11.0 ppg last season.

Cardoso's efforts rewarded her with a second-team All-American accolade by the end of last season. Ashlyn Watkins (9.2 ppg), Bree Hall (9.2 ppg) and Chloe Kitts (9.1 ppg) didn't have superior numbers but were effective contributors in the Gamecocks' championship-winning efforts.

Dawn Staley wants her team to be the perfect example of a unit that works together. She employs the concept of equal distribution to prove that strength in numbers is better than hero ball.