This was supposed to be Caitlin Clark’s weekend, the moment when women’s college basketball’s greatest scorer was rewarded for making believers of new fans and confirming to current fans that this game was an awesome spectacle of talent, grit and determination.
And so from the beginning of the game to the end of the game, even after the South Carolina Gamecocks beat Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes 87-75 to claim the National Championship, the cameras still followed the red-rimmed eyes of Clark into the dressing room. It was hard to let go of a story like Clark’s, who is not only a great scorer but also a great teammate who dished out assists that made her whole team perform better.
Clark made all of women’s college basketball better and more popular as Iowa-UConn semifinal that Iowa won in order to get into the final was watched by 14.2 million people, a record not just for women’s basketball, but for any basketball broadcast on ESPN. So, there’s no overstating Clark’s role in boosting her sport.
Yes, Caitlin Clark is a hard story to let go of . . . unless, of course, another story emerges that offers an even better angle on what constitutes the finishing touch on greatness.
And that story is called “perfection,” which is hard to achieve in any life endeavor, including big-time college basketball. And the main protagonist of this story is Dawn Staley, who has achieved perfection. In this year of the solar eclipse, Staley and her Gamecocks have achieved a total eclipse of their competition. Not an easy thing to do. Perfection is so difficult that the though the Miami Dolphins achieved this distinction in their 1972 Super Bowl winning year – more than 50 years ago – people are still talking about the accomplishment.
After winning this Championship on Sunday, Staley praised Clark for “lifting up our sport,” but surely Staley must get credit for lifting her sport to a realm few achieve.
Going 38-0 is not an easy thing to do, especially after losing all of your starters from the previous year. Not necessarily an easy thing to do after carrying the “burden” of losing to Iowa in last year’s Final Four and having to face them again.
“It was emotional for me because of how it ended last year,” Staley said after this year’s Championship. “It’s heavy, it’s heavy. You carry the burden of every single one of your players, all the coaches and staff members that put so much into our team. And it’s a heavy load to be undefeated, to finish the job.”
Staley’s Gamecocks finished the job in dominant fashion, denying the Hawkeyes a second shot at the basket for most of the afternoon and gobbling up rebounds on their offensive end. And while Iowa clearly had no answer for South Carolina’s six-foot-seven center Kamilla Cardosa, who finished with 17 rebounds and 15 points, a pair of blocked shots and a boatload of intimidation, the South Carolina win was very much a team effort.
Although she and her coaching staff thought their pre-season ranking at number six in the country seemed “too high,” Staley has now won three national championships, not to mention Olympic gold medals as a player and a coach. She has entered the Pantheon of greatness, not only because of her record but because she demonstrates a keen grasp of leadership lessons that include:
- Team-first mindset: Staley’s pitch to recruits is that she believes in playing lots of people, which means that individuals may not get as much time to shine individually, but they will win championships. South Carolina’s win against Iowa saw no fewer than nine women enjoyed significant playing time compared to six for Iowa, which had three players who never left the game. Former star Aliyah Boston noted that during practices, Staley treated starters and subs the same way. “Coach Staley never prioritized one group versus the other. If we did things right, we did it right. If we didn’t, she would correct us,” said Boston. “And same for the subs. If they didn’t get it right, they would stay on the court until they did.”
- A well-tuned adjust button: Staley not only recruited the right players, she optimized her roster to adjust to Iowa’s strengths. Last year, teams could pack the paint and force South Carolina to shoot jumpers, so Staley recruited and rebuilt her team to give it more presence in the paint, not only from Cardoso but also forward Chloe Kitts. In staff meetings, coaches used the words “pivot” and “meet them where they are” more than they ever had before in discussing their players. Sometimes, the coaching adjustments meant easing off the no phones rule the night before games and giving players four days off after the SEC title game. All those adjustments were meant to build the team for a moment like Sunday.
- Unbridled belief: You don’t have to be a person of faith to appreciate the power of believing, which is a value Staley wears on the sleeve of her Louis Vuitton metallic-silver jacket and tells the whole world, as she did in her post-game interview. The fact is many people who achieve greatness believe in a higher power that raises the bar of what’s achievable, as Staley pointed out when she uttered through her joyful tears, “God rips your heart out and he makes you believe!”
The result, as ESPN’s Ryan Ruocco called it, was “perfection with a touch of sweet redemption!” That’s hard to argue with—and that is the story of the 2024 women’s college basketball season.