"Not gonna dip that standard": When Dawn Staley set the expectations for Aliyah Boston and co. before winning the NCAA title vs UConn

Dawn Staley has built a culture of excellence at South Carolina, where the goal for the team each year is to win a national championship. Staley discussed a similar mindset for her 2022 team, which featured star player Aliyah Boston, in an interview ahead of the NCAA Tournament.

She was joined by Boston, the best player that year, along with Zia Cooke and Destanni Henderson — the core of their Gamecocks squad — in a WSLAM video that highlighted their preparation and mentality before the postseason.

"What makes this team special is, they have an insatiable desire to want to win a national championship and no one puts anybody in front of that goal," Staley said (at 1:19). "Like it is a togetherness, it's a unified group. It doesn't mean that everything is like hunky-dory and perfect.

"A player misses the class, everybody feels that because we have a standard that we live by. We have a standard of our culture, and we're not going to dip that standard, lower that standard ... we're all just trying to win a national championship for each other."

Dawn Staley's message was evident on the court. South Carolina went all the way to win the national championship — a second time under her tutelage — with the final victory over UConn, led by Geno Auriemma.

Aliyah Boston asserted her dominance in the tournament, earning Most Outstanding Player honors. She averaged 16.8 points and 15.2 rebounds in the tourney.

Dawn Staley reacts to Gamecocks being denied top overall seed in NCAA Tournament

It was reasonable to expect South Carolina to be the number one overall seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament, considering it went 30-3 and won both the SEC regular-season and tournament titles.

Dawn Staley even made a case for the selection committee last week to give the Gamecocks the overall top seed, arguing that they had been the best team in the country and played the most difficult schedule.

However, the overall one-seed ultimately went to Big Ten Tournament champion UCLA, with South Carolina earning the top seed in the Birmingham 2 regional instead.

"Obviously it's disappointing. It really is," Dawn Staley expressed her frustration (via an X post from Matt Dowell). "I'd like to get some feedback on how they came to that conclusion. Because we put together, manufactured a schedule that if done right, it should produce the overall No. 1 seed."

The Gamecocks will play their first-round game against Tennessee Tech on Friday. Duke, North Carolina and Maryland are the other top seeds in their region.