Dawn Staley grateful for South Carolina fans after dominant win vs Kim Mulkey's LSU: "This crowd showed up"

Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks stained the LSU Tigers' perfect season record on Friday with a 66-56 win. The defending champions, led by Joyce Edwards' 14 points and Sania Feagin's 12, handed Kim Mulkey her first defeat of the season.

While Staley had nothing but praise for her players after the game, she also thanked the fans for attending the game and providing her players with an extra dose of energy.

"I actually didn't know what team was gonna show up," Staley said. "Sometimes the cadence of not playing your normal Thursday (and) Sunday and having it delayed to Friday, it messes with you a little bit.

"We had one extra day that I really didn't want 'cause we were amped up to play on Thursday but, this crowd showed up. This crowd poured into our team and we fed off the energy in this building and I think it was great for women's basketball."

Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks have now won 69 consecutive games at the Colonial Life Arena, spread over five seasons. The team is currently under its toughest stretch of the year and will play its fifth consecutive ranked team (No. 17 Tennessee) on Monday.

For LSU, South Carolina was just the third-ranked contest of the season, which was a concerning aspect for the Tigers before they entered the game. The program has failed to win a contest against Staley since Mulkey took over the program in 2021.

Dawn Staley is not fully impressed with South Carolina's offense

In the post-game conference, Dawn Staley highlighted that she capitalized on LSU's rotations by targeting Flau'jae Johnsson and Aneesah Morrow early, with intentions of tiring them out. While she also commended her team's defensive hustle, the coach believes that the Gamecocks were out of character on offense at multiple points in the game.

"I don't think we played necessarily disciplined, andtit was hard to get our players to lock in what we needed to do and sometimes you just got to let them play," she said (Timestamp: 0:28).

"It was fast-paced, the first quarter, and then the break, I mean it really is a blur because I'm looking at them play and it's not really us offensively. And then defensively, I just thought we gave a gritty performance."

Dawn Staley and Kim Mulkey's offensive playbook were on full display in the first quarter, combining for 43 points in the first 10 minutes. However, the game slowed right after that, yielding 49 combined points till the end of the third quarter.