"This one feels a little bit better": $12,000,000 worth Dawn Staley opens up about SEC championship win despite "doubts" surrounding the team

Dawn Staley guided the South Carolina Gamecocks to their ninth SEC Tournament championship on Sunday, defeating Texas 64-45 in the final. This championship adds to Staley's decorated coaching career, which includes three national championships and nine regular season titles.

Chaz R Frazier, a Sports Director at ABC Columbia, met with Staley, who has a net worth of $12 million (per Celebrity Net Worth), after the game. He asked the coach about how this championship feels compared to previous ones, given how challenging the conference has become.

"Well, this one feels a little bit better just because of the circumstances," Staley said. "Because we lost some games and we were challenged. We were put back on our heels and we came out fighting — fighting to play better individually and then fighting to play better as a collective team.

"There has been a little bit of doubt surrounding this team because of those losses. But I see us just getting better. And sometimes when you take those losses, it helps you refocus. It helps you know your worth and it brought us together rather than separating us."

Dawn Staley's Gamecocks are the defending national champions after going 38-0 last season. However, they had to navigate some turbulence in this campaign, lsoing three games overall to UCLA, UConn and Texas.

The last time they faced the Longhorns was a month ago when Texas handed South Carolina its only loss in SEC play. The two teams ended up tied atop the league standings and were crowned co-regular season champions.

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Dawn Staley says the team needed to step up defensively than their last Texas game

No. 1 seed South Carolina avenged its previous loss to No. 2 seed Texas by dominating the SEC Tournament final, holding the Longhorns to just 45 points — 21 fewer than in their last matchup.

During the postgame presser, Dawn Staley highlighted the team's defensive improvements as the key factor in their championship win.

"It was timely. It was what we needed today — I think we needed to play a lot better than the last time that we played them," Staley said.

"Texas is going to be right back here. I’m not saying that they weren't prepared — it's just, to win a national championship, you got to have experienced all the things that come with it."

The 45-point output was Texas' lowest-scoring game of the season, second only to their loss to the same South Carolina team in January, when they scored 50 points.