"We're not perfect but we're focused": Dawn Staley reaffirms South Carolina locker room morale before Vanderbilt matchup

Dawn Staley's South Carolina is set to begin its two-game road trip in the Southeastern conference on Sunday when it takes on the Vanderbilt Commodores at the Memorial Gymnasium. The Gamecocks have had a mixed run in the last five games as they lost against Texas and UConn, placing them at the No. 6 spot in the AP top 25 rankings.

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley spoke to the media during the practice session on Friday and she was asked about the team's morale going into the game.

"It's good; we're focused," she said (1:26). "I mean, we're not perfect, but we're focused and when we have the level of focus that we have, we're going to be disciplined on both sides of the basketball and we going to play cleaner basketball. So it's easy for everyone to see both sides of the ball."

After the undefeated run to the national championship last season, the Gamecocks seem to be finding their way and have a 24-3 overall record (12-1 SEC). Texas occupies the top spot in the SEC standings and could win the regular season championship.

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Dawn Staley announces new book release

On Friday, Dawn Staley announced the release of her book, "Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother and Life Lessons I learned from All Three," on May 20.

Talking about the timing and motivation behind writing her book, she said (via Greenville News):

"Number one I just got tired of people asking me. Two, I had to do it before I forgot everything and three, I think the season that we had last year made me really thankful for what I described as an uncommon favor or career."

Staley made the announcement via social media, sharing that she took this step after much persuasion from people in her family and fans from around the country. When asked about her experience writing, she said:

"Writing a book, you have to think about a lot of things. The good stuff is in it. Things that were impactful to my life, starting out growing up in North Philly in the projects. Everything has a correlation to that, everything has a correlation back to my mother, everything has a correlation to the successes and it was just cause of the foundation that I had."

The book gives an account of Dawn Staley's time growing up in North Philadelphia, her time playing point guard for the Virginia Cavaliers, her three Olympic gold medals in 1996, 2000 and 2004, and her experience coaching at Temple and South Carolina.