NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - HOWARD VS SOUTH CAROLINA

March 17, 2022

Dawn Staley

Destanni Henderson

Aliyah Boston

South Carolina Gamecocks

Media Conference

DAWN STALEY: Just excited to get started. Got a chance to feel the energy in the building last night watching UIW and Howard, and it was kind of cool to be back in the building and have fans in the building and watch a pretty good, well-executed game by both teams.

But finally we get a chance to know who our opponent is, and we're pretty excited to get things going.

Q. You talked all year about the national championship being your goal; now it's here. Any change in feeling in the locker room about tomorrow, it's really starting?

DESTANNI HENDERSON: Our goals are still the same. Nothing in that aspect changes. Just our perspective coming into the game and just not thinking that we're going to win every game, but just to take every game seriously and just take every game one game at a time. Just really dial in and be collective as a unit and just ready to play each game.

Q. Aliyah, on you career you've done a lot of great things here, been a part of a team that has done a lot of great things, but you haven't been able to play a home NCAA tournament game here. What does that mean to be able to do that your own building?

ALIYAH BOSTON: Yeah, I'm pretty excited. Can't wait to see the atmosphere tomorrow when we come in, and just ready to get the tournament started.

Q. This is for both of you: At the SEC tournament the last two games there, taking the foot off the gas in the last two games in the fourth quarter, tell me, what have you been doing in practice, what's the emphasis on making sure you keep your foot on the gas throughout the tournament?

DESTANNI HENDERSON: I just feel like those last two games wasn't our best games. I feel like coming into practice after those games I feel like we've just been going even harder or just getting extra reps in.

I feel like the momentum and the energy in practice has been different coming into this tournament, so I feel really good. I'm pretty sure my teammates feel really good about this tournament.

So I just feel like the energy is just different for us.

ALIYAH BOSTON: I also agree with that. I think we've just been putting a lot more like on ourselves making that we're staying up to playing how we need to play the entire four quarters and just making sure that we focus on that.

Q. Aliyah, for you, what inspired to you write what you recently did in the Players Tribune, keeping the main thing the main thing. And if you could explain to people at home, when did that phrase really start to resonate with you, and how much did coach play a part in that phrase becoming something you hold on to?

ALIYAH BOSTON: Yeah, coach told us that phrase, keep the main thing the main thing, and she's been telling us that all year. So I just felt like that fit perfectly right into the story just because the main thing has been to bring home a national championship back to South Carolina.

The tournament is starting, so that needs to remain the same.

Q. Destanni, for you, as a senior going into your last March Madness with South Carolina, what does it mean to you to play like your best right now, and the smile that you have on your face? Just kind of what does all this mean for and you what is your goal going into it?

DESTANNI HENDERSON: It's super exciting. This is my first time being in this type of situation where I'm playing on my home court. It's just bittersweet. I'm ready to get it rocking. At the same time, I'm going to miss everything that comes with it.

But I just feel like my aspect of coming into the game, I'm just really excited. I'm going to give it my all and just take it one step at a time.

Q. For both you guys, 11 and 0 against the top 25. Is this the most prepared you think you've felt for a deep run in the NCAA tournament since you got here?

ALIYAH BOSTON: I think every year we've been pretty prepared. I think our nonconference schedule this year was pretty tough and we did pretty well, so I would say we're very prepared.

But every time it's been the same deal.

DESTANNI HENDERSON: Yeah, I would agree. I feel like we're always prepared. Just got to keep the mindset as we're just trying to persevere through things and just finish out strong.

Q. Destanni, for you, obviously being the floor general out there, at what point in a game do you find yourself searching for that opportunity to turn it up offensively and then maybe dial it back a little bit and then maybe you pick it up defensively? I guess take us a little bit into your mindset of how do you feel a game out as you're out there playing?

DESTANNI HENDERSON: I'm very calm and collected majority of the time. Now that you ask that question it's kind of like, it just happens. I really like don't think about it sometimes. Sometimes I probably do, but I just feel like when a game is on the line, of course I'm going to want to turn the page and try to make something happen for the team to get the win at the end of the day.

So that's just really my mindset from here on out. Just try to do everything that I could in the given moment to win the game.

Q. A when you hear the seniors talk about what it means to them to be able to go out like this, as junior, what does that do for you? Do you take on that same motivation they have or as a junior is it something different?

ALIYAH BOSTON: No, I think it's the same as the seniors. They want to go out and bring home a national championship, and that's what I'm also focused on, just making sure I can do everything to help the team so we can be the last team standing.

Q. For both of you, how much is team cohesion and the your chemistry, I mean, even up here in the press conferences you can tell you really want to play for each other. How much does that play into the success you've had and how much is it you just want to win for each other?

ALIYAH BOSTON: I think it's very important. Actually, right before we had film we were just talking about -- Zia actually said if you want to win bad enough then nothing is going to get in your way. I feel like that's our mindset. We all want to win and have the same goal of winning it all, so it just helps us to play better.

DESTANNI HENDERSON: I agree. I just feel like being on the same page makes it a little bit easier. You don't really have to worry about people thinking about other things. If you're on the same page and you want to win, I feel like it just puts you in a position just to play hard and know that you're playing for each other.

Q. For either of you, curious, how much do you draw on past experiences, good or bad, and how much do you embrace a windshield mentality, what's in front of you, and the goals remaining?

DESTANNI HENDERSON: Speaking on past experiences, like our last two games wasn't our best, so that's something that we felt in the moment.

But it ain't something that we're going to keep relying on and bringing into what we got going now.

So just turn the page, let it go, and just now in this present moment just give it our all and do everything you can to bring home the national championship.

ALIYAH BOSTON: I also -- (laughter.) I also agree. Past games, no matter what's happened, this is new tournament and here we go. It's time to rock.

DESTANNI HENDERSON: Time to dance.

ALIYAH BOSTON: Time to dance. I take it back. (Laughter.)

Q. This is a random question for the players. Sitting in and listening to Incarnate Word and Howard having their press conference on Tuesday, it was interesting to hear the players -- I think one of them said they were fan-girling a little bit being able to be in Columbia, playing South Carolina in South Carolina's facility. What does that mean as players to be a role model? What does that mean to have that representation and be someone that fellow players can look up to?

ALIYAH BOSTON: Yeah, it means a lot. I also just want to give a lot of credit to Coach Staley, because it shows what she built and the kind of program she has.

People just look at us and they're like, wow. It's a really special feeling.

Good job, Coach.

DAWN STALEY: I agree. (Laughter.)

Q. For both you ladies as well, I guess Aliyah, if you don't mind answering first, and then Destanni. Obviously Dawn and her coaching staff obviously built this team into a national championship contending team. As the players, what do you feel like makes you guys a national championship contender, and what needs to happen?

ALIYAH BOSTON: I think it's all about just having the same goal, making sure we're all on the same page.

And the coaching staff has done a great job helping us to be able to get there. I think we have a lot of depth on our team and everybody that steps on the flower produces something positive.

I definitely think that's going to help us throughout the entire tournament.

DESTANNI HENDERSON: I agree. I feel like just being coachable and not having to coach effort is a great mindset, because you know you're going to step on the floor and you're going to do what you need to do at the end of the day to get the job done.

I just feel like the coaches have done a great job recruiting just great players, and I feel like everybody on our team means something to the team and have a role in our team.

And that's just what it is.

Q. Obviously you didn't know who you were going to be playing until last night. On tomorrow, is there anything specifically that jumps out about Howard?

DESTANNI HENDERSON: They play fast, shoot threes. They want to get out. They press. That's all something that we take into consideration. A lot of teams have been trying to press us lately, so that's something that we really been working on in had practice, to try to break the press, and continue our offense because a lot teams want to slow us down in transition.

ALIYAH BOSTON: They're also a great rebounding team, and so we got to got to make sure we're boxing out and just continuing to be physical.

Q. Aliyah, this is for you: Wondering how connected are you still to Worcester, and how excited are you to represent them on such a big platform on the No. 1 overall team in the tournament?

ALIYAH BOSTON: Yeah, I'm still very connected to Worcester. My aunt still lives there and a lot of my old coaches. They have all been texting and continuing to encourage me, so I'm just really glad I'm able to help represent them.

Q. This is for both of you: You talked earlier about the big picture, trying to keep your focus ahead and not look back too much. But Dawn at times has referenced the past, especially the Missouri game I guess when she sees that you're not putting forth the full effort. Have you seen that as well? What do you think about it, and how has that helped motivate and keep you focused towards the big goal?

DESTANNI HENDERSON: I feel like it helps motivate me, because if we are slacking, just hearing the Missouri game or any other game that I feel like we didn't play our best just puts a different type of chip on your shoulder.

Makes you turn the page and go harder, because at the end of the day I've always just wanted to win, and I'm sure my other teammates felt that as well.

Just mentioning the Missouri game, it just hits different for a lot of us for many different reasons. I just feel like it just makes us go even harder.

ALIYAH BOSTON: I agree. (Laughter.)

Q. About this time last year we found out LeLe wouldn't be able to play in the tournament. What does it mean for you to have this other chance for her, and how excited is she to be getting to play in this tournament after last year?

DAWN STALEY: Any time you sustain the type of injury she sustained and it prevents you from participating in the NCAA tournament in your last year you feel really bad.

LeLe had a choice to not come back or to come back, and she chose to come back. She's helped put us in this situation where we're starting the NCAA tournament in a different way, in a more normal way where we get the chance to host the first and second rounds.

I think she sees thing coming full circle, and hopefully it ends a lot better than it did last year.

Q. (No microphone.)

DAWN STALEY: I mean, you can't get to where you are as a program without having leaders who have been in your program. This is her fifth year and she knows the good, bad, the ugly of it and how to navigate through it and how to be the example of how to navigate through it.

She's helped some of our younger players really understand that what you're feeling today is not what you're going to feel for the rest of your career. She's helping them get through it.

And then it's the experience. I mean, you just know. It's like you're putting on your old faithful pair of jeans that fit in all the right places, that got all the -- what do you call it, the wallet creases and all that, yeah.

LeLe is just like that. Sometimes she plays a whole lot and sometimes doesn't play a whole lot. But it's great comfort in knowing that she's always there when you need her.

Q. This team has been obviously battle tested. 11-0 against the top 25. I think that's the most wins against the top 25 since Tennessee in the 90s. Wondering, from somebody who has played and coached in the NCAA tournament, does that translate? How does that help in the post season?

DAWN STALEY: Just helps by having really good questions to ask, like now. But you don't really take that into it.

Yeah, we've won them, but, I mean, each game in the NCAA tournament brings a different -- it just brings a different mentality. The stakes are a little bit higher no matter what round it is. When you're playing those type of games throughout the season you know you're going to see another day. If you win or lose, you're going to get back up and continue the habits that you created.

Here now your habits have to be on display every single game, every single practice, in and out through your day you have to create those habits, because, I mean, March is known as madness for a reason.

So, I mean, it's a notch in our belt, but certainly not anything we're going to hang our hats on to say it's going to propel us to beating Howard tomorrow afternoon.

Q. Dawn, when you see Aliyah embrace one of your prominent sayings, keep the main thing the main thing, really take it to heart, own it and put it out there for everyone to know, what does that mean to you as a coach to see one of your star players really embrace your philosophy on the biggest of stages?

DAWN STALEY: I mean, the star player, they're the star player because they listen, they learn. It's the other ones that don't really buy into it when you're really coaching.

You know, we came up with that phrase because there is a whole lot of things that pulls at our players. I mean, you got NIL deals, you got friends, social media, all these things that are a part of their life.

And they should be because they're young, they're navigating this transformational time of their life. But, they got goals. If you got a goal win a national championship then you got to prioritize. That priority is winning a national championship and nothing else. I know our academic people will say, ahhhh.

I mean, I been asked that question, you know, on my Podcast. Like I didn't think about academics. If we had study hall, I wasn't thinking about what was in front of me. It's just hard. We are the ultimate compartmentalizer to a certain extent.

It's this time, when everything -- you turn on the television, riding in your car, everybody is talking about March Madness. When you're a team that is projected as one of the teams that could win, it just heightens it more.

So it takes your focus to that, and that is the main thing right now. I know Aliyah and everybody else buys into the phrase of keeping the main thing the main thing.

Q. Going back to the first year, you had a team that got to play NCAA tournament games here in the CLA. What was your level of excitement and anticipation along with the teams, and how does that compare to now, because you have so many of your players that this is going to a first-time experience for them?

DAWN STALEY: Yeah, I sit back and I think it really is a huge advantage when you're able to host. It doesn't mean -- you have to show up and play the games, but it creates a huge advantage.

I think for the times that I've come in this league, the SEC, it was always like rest his soul, Commissioner Slive, he would come into our spring meetings and he used to be mad because we would ask for the world, right? We would ask, we want this, this, this.

He's like, Well, you know, I got you a television deal. Put some people in the stands. It doesn't look good on TV. Go back on your campuses and you need to work and put people in the stands.

And we've done that on a large scale. I think some cultures, I looked at some social media posts, some coaches be, they're like when we move to -- our game is grown to having neutral sites during this time.

And I'm like, you know, we've built this fan base. We should be rewarded. This is the reward of building a strong fan base. When everybody is caught on to it, to building that strong fan base, I know -- I know -- if we move to a neutral site during these rounds, the stands will be filled because they're going to want to watch their teams perform.

So I just think -- I mean, that's been our -- that's been the carrot dangled in front of us ever since the NCAA decided that the top 16 will host.

Have we moved, has our game moved to the point the neutral sites? I think it's doable. It's doable, but is there room for the people that host -- the 16 teams that host, is there room for them to put more people in the stands? Absolutely.

So we got to grow at the same time. If we're going to push neutral sites, we got to push having people in the stands and making it look like a tournament that's worth watching or that's worth getting in the building to see.

Q. Dawn, with what Laeticia was going through at the time of the end of her high school career, why was it important for you guys help get her here early? And then two, just with you guys formulating that support system around her that early on, how much do you feel like that has helped her flourish as a basketball player and a person as well?

DAWN STALEY: I mean, LA tore her ACL in high school, like a junior in high school. In recruiting her she was telling us what she had to do to rehab. Hour and a half to, hour and a half back, and then school in between.

When she did it her senior year, I mean, we're like, What can we do? She wouldn't be able to do that. Great student. She put herself in a position where -- we're talking early December of her senior year and we're like, Let's do the football thing. First thing that came to mind. How does football do it? Well, they graduate.

They graduate early, and luckily she's a great student. She only needed -- like she -- I think she needed two courses and they were two -- she had to complete it within two weeks because she had to get in school here.

It was all her. Like if she wasn't a great student it wouldn't be possible. So she set the stage prior to even having been in that situation.

But to come here in the middle of the season, I thought it was hard. It's really hard. I mean, friendships have been established. She was probably -- thinking, Why did I do it?

But now that she's two, three years removed she's probably like, it's the best thing. She's going to graduate I think in December. She going to start grad school.

So it's overall helpful. I mean, she has a voice on our campus. She does so much more than play the game of basketball. She does everything else in her life at a high level. Overall it helped her. She's mature enough to handle it.

Q. I wanted to ask your thoughts around Frank Martin and the men's basketball program parting ways. Have you had any conversations with him since this happened, and what's it like seeing a colleague leave a program here at South Carolina?

DAWN STALEY: No, I haven't. I did send him a text message like I sent all his assistant coaches text messages. I mean, it's hard. I've known Frank and his family for ten years. Again, it's like putting those jeans on. It's like having the same person.

We are creatures of habit. We like the comfort of who we have close to our program. I know Frank, I mean, Frank, he loves it here. He loved his players. He loves his players. He's always going to be in their lives. I think the bottom line is it's a tough call, and that's just being in our business.

There is a certain look that people want and if you don't give it to them, it's the next man up. That's the way it is, and I know Frank knows that better than all of us.

Q. Dawn, there are 12 black women's coaches in this year's NCAA tournament, double from last year. Do you feel like this is progress? Do you feel like you have helped this progress, these opportunities progress for African-American women? And Coach Grace at Howard has a piece of your net and says wonderful things about you. Have you adjusted to the role of statesman or someone people look up to?

DAWN STALEY: I mean, I don't think I'm the common denominator in the success of Black coaches. I think opportunity is that. When you give people opportunity that don't often get it and they're successful, this is kind of what happens. I think it's popular now. Like it was popular probably, I don't know when Coach Law -- when Coach Law got the Illinois job, like a lot of Black coaches got opportunities during that time.

And then probably three, four years later, 75% of them weren't head coaches anymore, and they don't get recycled like other coaches. So I think now Black coaches are more prepared because they have had to be prepared.

They saw what happened. They saw what happened to Coach Law, and that trend of coaches that got an opportunity, and they have just prepared well.

You know, I think Ty has done a great job and Howard in the way she coaches, the discipline. You can see it. I think she's a star in the game, and I know we don't want her to -- we don't want to take her from Howard, but obviously when you're a competitor0 you want to compete at the highest level.

Not to say that Howard isn't the highest level, but there is more. Like when I was at Temple I got to a point where I was enjoying it, and then you get to a point where you keep losing in the first and second round and you're like, Man, this sucks. I want to win. Seriously. Like it was.

It wasn't anything against Temple and my players there. It was just if I'm going to be in it, I want to win. Sometimes you have to put yourself in a position where you can attract better talent, you know, you can coach -- like coming to the SEC helped me be a better coach because of the coaches that I faced and what you have to do to learn.

But it's performing. Performance matters. Production matters. Ty is doing a great job with it.

Q. What's your opinion on the First Four, and if it your opinion changed after seeing what the games meant to the teams last night? And also if you could tell us a little bit about the handshake line for UIW and meeting them this morning.

DAWN STALEY: I actually -- I wasn't a fan of the First Four until you're in it. That's why I'm glad people don't listen to me. It was awesome.

When I said I wasn't a fan of it I didn't really visualize the people, the young people, the coaches, and the storylines that came out of it.

Like the young lady from UIW, what said about fan-girling and being in our arena. That's pretty darn cool. I mean, shamefully admitting that I didn't want that to happen.

I'm glad that the powers that be thought this was a great thing to do for our game. You know, I'm happy. I think it's -- because of what I heard. We were at the game and I was just like, you know, how cool it would be for us to just go congratulate them as they were coming off the floor.

And then the coach sent a tweet out like people wanted to take pictures, we're going to be at the statute at 8:45. I was like, I'm usually up, so let me just go.

I went and took pictures, and the young lady that said she was fan-girling, she didn't fan-girl while she was at the statute, but she put it on social media that she got it done.

So I think it's just pretty cool. Met the coach, Jeff, for the first time. You know, he said in his 32 years of coaching he's never been on a chartered flight except to come here. Like that is what this game is supposed to be about, just giving an experience. Giving an experience like no other.

I know they didn't win the game, but they won something much bigger than a game. This is them being able to experience what they got to experience here in our arena, in our city, and our state.

Q. Just kind of the same thing. You watched the game last night. When you pop in the tape on Howard, what jumps out and what kind of challenges do you think they'll present tomorrow afternoon?

DAWN STALEY: Yeah, the pressing jumps out. The rebounding sticks out. The want-to sticks out. So it's not a thing where we think we are just going to roll the ball out and beat them. We prepare for every opponent the same exact way.

That is we cross our Ts and dot the Is. There isn't anybody we disrespect in this game. It is March Madness. For as long as I've been a player and now a coach, that's one thing I never have done. I won't allow anybody else to disrespect any of our opponents.

Formidable opponent that can shoot it, rebound the rebound the basketball, and that can defend. When you have that combination on any day, anybody can win.