Former WNBA nice and present South Carolina girls’s basketball coach Daybreak Staley secured this system’s third nationwide championship this previous Sunday.
Staley has coached the ladies’s basketball group to a powerful 109-3 file over the previous three seasons, profitable two titles over that span. The Gamecocks reached the Closing 4 final season, the place they have been eradicated by Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Sunday’s highly-anticipated matchup between South Carolina and Iowa attracted file viewership. Texas soccer coach Steve Sarkisian was among the many hundreds of thousands of viewers who watched Staley coach the Gamecocks to victory.
Head coach Steve Sarkisian of the Texas Longhorns seems to be on throughout the second quarter in opposition to the Washington Huskies throughout the CFP Semifinal Allstate Sugar Bowl at Caesars Superdome on January 01, 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Chris Graythen/Getty Photographs)
South Carolina is a longstanding member of the Southeastern Convention, the identical convention the Longhorns are set to hitch subsequent season. Sarkisian seems to be drawing inspiration from Staley’s profitable run within the SEC and past.
“I watched each video games. I watched each tournaments, fairly frankly,” Sarkisian mentioned, by way of On3.com. “And I feel what coach [Dawn] Staley has achieved has been clearly very spectacular in that she’s assembled expertise 12 months after 12 months, however she’s acquired her tradition for certain, and it is in place. She instills it in them.”
“She had a complete new group this 12 months, they usually went out and gained each sport. And final 12 months they lose within the semis, they could not get it achieved,” Sarkisian continued. “So very impressed with what she’s been in a position to do.”
SOUTH CAROLINA’S DAWN STALEY PRAISES CAITLIN CLARK FOR ‘LIFTING UP OUR SPORT,’ CALLS HER’‘ONE OF THE GOATS’
Sarkisian mentioned he’s “striving” to achieve a stage of success that’s just like what Staley has achieved in Columbia, South Carolina.
Daybreak Staley of the South Carolina Gamecocks celebrates because the confetti falls after beating Iowa Hawkeyes within the 2024 NCAA Ladies’s Basketball Match Nationwide Championship at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on April 07, 2024 in Cleveland, Ohio (Steph Chambers/Getty Photographs)
Sarkisian coached Texas to an 11-1 common season file, a Massive 12 Convention title, and a berth within the Faculty Soccer Playoffs semifinals. However, Texas finally got here up quick, dropping to the Washington Huskies.
“We’re at all times all striving for that and these nice groups that do it at a excessive, excessive stage,” Sarkisian added. “I have been lucky to be a part of some nice groups in that period with Pete Carroll, so it is not a one-time factor. You have to regularly work on the issues which are vital to you to recreate it 12 months after 12 months after 12 months.”
Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian watches the run of play throughout the Allstate Sugar Bowl playoff sport between the Texas Longhorns and the Washington Huskies on Monday, January 1, 2024 at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, LA.
Sarkisian was additionally complementary of UConn coach Dan Hurley, who secured a second consecutive nationwide title on the boys’s aspect on Monday evening.
“And really impressed with what coach Hurley has been in a position to do. I feel he misplaced three or 4 NBA gamers off final 12 months’s group.”
Sarkisian credited each Staley and Hurley for his or her respective talents to “coach arduous.”
“However one factor that could be very clear in each of them. I’d say two issues,” Sarkisian mentioned. “The primary is that they coach arduous. There’s not for a second, you watch their interplay with their gamers, the place they’re not teaching them arduous. And so they’re demanding of their gamers. However you can even really feel the love coming from them with their gamers.”
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