In Photos: South Carolina HC Dawn Staley shares heartwarming snaps from 2024 WNBA draft as Kamilla Cardoso joins Angel Reese in Chicago Sky

Dawn Staley took to Instagram to share some heartwarming snaps from the 2024 WNBA Draft on Monday. The snaps featured the South Carolina Gamecocks women's basketball head coach and the team's star Kamilla Cardoso. This comes as Cardoso became a first-round pick and joined Angel Reese in Chicago.

Staley and Cardoso are coming on the back of a national championship title in their final year together in South Carolina. It was their second title together with the first one coming back in 2022. Now Cardoso is taking the next steps in her career while the legendary coach would return to Columbia to launch a title defense with the Gamecocks again.

For now, both Dawn Staley and Kamilla Cardoso were in New York for the WNBA Draft 2024 and here are some snippets.

Staley shared this on her Instagram story.

The 24-year coaching veteran celebrated as Cardoso became the 11th player from the South Carolina program in her reign to be picked in the first round of the draft. She was picked by the Chicago Sky as the third overall pick at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Sky also selected LSU superstar Angel Reese as the seventh overall pick of the day.

A factual self promotion from Staley.

The Gamecocks won the third national title of the Staley era earlier this month after fighting off the Iowa Hawkeyes led by Caitlin Clark.

Clark, who had also lost in the 2023 final against Reese and the Tigers, became the first player taken off the board. With the 2024 class now transferred to the WNBA, Dawn Staley and other coaches would be back at the drawing board to prepare for the 2024-25 season.

Dawn Staley’s rockstar entry into the South Carolina victory parade with Kamilla Cardoso and gang

Dawn Staley has seen victory parades before but she always comes up with ways to make a mark in them. In her third victory parade this past Sunday, she decided to make an entrance akin to a rockstar. The Gamecocks head coach arrived at the scene in a Rolls Royce with the national championship trophy.

The parade coincided with the WNBA Draft orientation, but Kamilla Cardoso decided to give it a skip and join Staley and the team in the celebration. It featured a float with tombstones of every team they defeated in their invincible 38-0 season. For the first black coach to win more than two national titles, style comes easy. Now it remains to be seen who will replace Cardoso for the next season.