Dawn Staley in FIBA Hall of Fame: South Carolina HC reacts to ultimate "worldwide" honor for Team USA contributions, joins exclusive list with Coach K

Dawn Staley is one of the nine FIBA Hall of Fame Class of 2025 inductees set to be honored in Bahrain on May 17. She joins an elite list of basketball names like Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski), Pau Gasol and Andrew Bogut. For Staley, who has played and coached Team USA throughout her professional career, the honor comes behind her on-court efforts.

The South Carolina Gamecocks coach thanked god, her stars and the players she played with while speaking about the honor in a courtside interview on Friday.

"My entire career has been an uncommon type of favor, everything that I've gotten certainly, I pay tribute to the man above for just pouring out the blessings," she said (Timestamp: 2:20).

"When I look at Hall of Fame, I look at the type of teammates that I have... sometimes when you have teammates that are as great as my teammates have been, they shine the light, they actually pour the light outward and inward."

"I don't become a Hall of Famer without having the teammates that I've had cuz I didn't score a whole lot of points, I probably had more assists than I did points. But to be in the FIBA Hall of Fame, that's worldwide, that's not just contained here in the US, it's worldwide and it's a true blessing."

Dawn Staley earned 10 gold medal with Team USA, helping them to two FIBA World Cups (1998 & 2002) and three Olympic golds (1996, 2000 & 2004). She also represented the country as the flag-bearer in '04.

Staley has also led the USA in different coaching capacities, including gold medal head coaching runs in the 2018 World Cup and 2020 Olympics.

Dawn Staley talks about South Carolina's tough stretch of games

No. 2 South Carolina is currently in its toughest 5-game stretch of the season, facing ranked teams consecutively. The Gamecocks defeated No. 5 Texas and No. 19 Alabama with a 15+ point difference.

Nevertheless, Dawn Staley still demands the team to remain sharp and focus on one game at a time.

"I mean for it's just game by game," she said (5:00). If you look at the whole totality of these five games or the rest of the season, it leaves you with a with a big headache. So, it's just game by game.

"Next game up is Oklahoma and we we certainly have to be better. I'm glad that we're playing at home, I'm glad that, hopefully, the 18,000 people that are that are going to be in this building will inject some energy for us not to play bad basketball."

Dawn Staley and South Carolina (17-1, 5-0 SEC) will face No. 13 Oklahoma (15-3, 3-2) on Sunday and remain home for an SEC championship rematch against No. 5 LSU (19-0, 4-0) on Thursday. They then travel to face No. 15 Tennessee (15-2, 3-2) for their last game in January.