“Wasn’t our best and prettiest basketball”: $12 million-worth Dawn Staley reviews South Carolina’s close win vs Duke

Modified Mar 31, 2025 11:20 GMT

NCAA Womens Basketball: NCAA Tournament Birmingham Regional-Elite 8 South Carolina vs Duke - Source: Imagn

Dawn Staley's South Carolina pulled off a dramatic 54-50 win over the Duke Blue Devils on Sunday. While the Gamecocks led through the first half, the Blue Devils caught up after half-time, and the game remained a close call until the final whistle.

During a postgame chat with Westwood One Sports's Danny Reed and Debbie Antonelli, Staley commented on the game.

"We got it good. Seriously, I don't know how," the $12 million-worth Dawn Staley (per Celebrity Net Worth) said. "Wasn’t our best and prettiest basketball, but it doesn't have to be. You just want to score one more points, more than Duke, and they played an awesome game.

"They took us to the very end. It was a possession-by-possession basketball game, and we were able to pull it through.

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South Carolina won the 2024 NCAA Tournament with an undefeated season run. While the Gamecocks were unable to repeat it this season, they look like a team making a legitimate case to win its first back-to-back.

Dawn Staley comments on Final Four plans

With Sunday's win, Dawn Staley and her South Carolina have time to prepare before the Final Four clash later this week. With the Gamecocks taking on the winner of the TCU vs Texas clash, Staley was asked about her plans during the postgame presser.

"With Texas, we're going to muck it up just like we do in the SEC conference," Staley replied. "If it's TCU, much the same because they can score a lot of points. I just hope that we can get our offense going a little bit.

"We can't seem to just to play a little more fluidly. I thought that we played with a lot better pace than we did on Friday (Sweet 16 vs Maryland). So I mean the pace will help some, but, you know, when you have two teams that really defend, it's going to look like that."

South Carolina played against TCU once in the regular season, winning 85-52. The Gamecocks are 2-1 against the Longhorns this season. They won once in the regular season and lost the second game. Dawn Staley's team beat Texas to win the SEC Tournament championship.

About the author

Ruth is a College Sports writer at Sportskeeda with over two years of experience reporting for multiple publications. Ruth values thorough research while reporting and leaves nothing for assumption, emphasizing the ethics needed to write about the human aspect of a player. She is an expert in profiling and giving fans a peek into their favorite players outside of the sport.

Ruth has reported for The Covai Mail and worked for Anandha Vikatan as a press correspondent. She has a master's degree in English, which influenced her journey into writing, and her love for sports was mainly due to watching it while growing up. Ruth enjoys college sports as much as the NBA and NFL because of the dedicated fan-following college programs have.

The South Carolina Gamecocks are her favorite college program, and she considers them the definition of rising from the ashes. Their coach, Dawn Staley, is Ruth’s favorite coach of all time because of how she built the culture in the program and the camaraderie in her squad. Jared McCain and Angel Reese are her favorite players for being unapologetically themselves. Ruth also admires Caitlin Clark for being one of the best and yet staying humble and holding herself high.

Ruth likes to watch interior design shows on Netflix or travel vlogs on YouTube when not reporting. Her favorite College Sports moment of all time was when Angel Reese blocked a shot with an untied shoe in her hand.

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Edited by Bhargav