TAMPA, Fla. — Once again, South Carolina is playing in a national championship game. And once again, head coach Dawn Staley is fielding questions about the impending legacy of an opposing star’s elusive title while her program chases its own history.
“I can’t not address it because it’s happening,” Staley said on Saturday. “It happened to us last year. Everything was about Caitlin Clark and her legacy and her ability to win a national championship. Yet, we were coming into this thing undefeated, doing something that’s unprecedented at the time, because it’s hard. It’s hard. We find ourselves back here in a similar situation.”
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The national title game on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, ABC) will be UConn guard Paige Bueckers’ final collegiate game before entering the WNBA Draft, where she’s projected to go No. 1 to the Dallas Wings, as well as the culmination of a historically successful South Carolina class. The push-and-pull of dueling legacies adds a lift to the emerging rivalry.
Bueckers, the former No. 1 recruit and “generational talent” coming out of high school, imagined four titles in four years, matching Huskies great Breanna Stewart. Instead, injuries marred her and UConn’s half-decade to leave 40 minutes between her and one single ring. It would be the program’s first since Stewart’s run ended in 2016.
“There’s a sentimental narrative about Paige,” Staley said. “A great freakin’ player. Anybody would start their franchise with Paige because of her efficient way of playing, because she’s a winner, because she cerebrally just knows the game, just has an aura about her.”
Will UConn’s Paige Bueckers go out with a title on Sunday, or will South Carolina hoist the trophy? (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A year ago, questions rained down about Clark, the all-time leading scorer who led Iowa to back-to-back Final Fours. It was a storyline loaded in sentimentality for a player who brought skyrocketing attention to women’s basketball and questions abounded if Clark could be called the greatest of all time without a title. Though Staley said ahead of the matchup that Clark winning a title would “seal the deal,” she said after the game she was “one of the GOATs of our game.”
The Gamecocks entered last year’s title game undefeated and delivered the program’s third title despite their youth. This group’s seniors are playing in their fourth Final Four on Sunday, aiming for a third national championship. They have yet to win back-to-back championships, which would solidify their position alongside the greats from UConn, Tennessee and USC. The Gamecocks are 144-6 over the past four years, which is better than the celebrated “freshies” class that went 129-9 behind Naismith-winning center Aliyah Boston.
Staley said the narratives about those two “great players” overshadowed what her players have done for four years.
“When you put a narrative out there, everybody sees that, and it puts us at a disadvantage, whether you want to believe so or not,” Staley said. “Officials see it. It’s all over TikTok. It’s all over ‘SportsCenter.’ It’s all over all of that.”
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UConn head coach Geno Auriemma knows what it’s like to send a senior off with a championship as he’s done plenty of times over his record 11 titles. Auriemma said Saturday that Bueckers has a life “most people would dream about” and “doesn’t need anything to change her life to make her life better.”
“But for someone who’s invested so much into the University of Connecticut, the community, the team, her teammates and loves the game so much, she deserves to go out as a national champion,” Auriemma said. “But so do a bunch of kids at South Carolina that have done the exact same thing. And that’s the beauty of it. Only one of those is going to get to be able to do that. And what I want for Paige is the same thing that Dawn wants for her kids.”
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South Carolina starters Sania Feagin, Bree Hall and Te-Hina Paopao, who transferred from Oregon ahead of the 2023-24 season, have a chance to exit college on a winning note, a rare accomplishment. It would be Feagin and Hall’s third championship in four years, matching senior classes from Connecticut and Tennessee.
“I want the sentiments to be about our players and what our players have been able to do — equally, because there’s room to do both,” Staley said.
The rivalry fills the vacuum of Final Four battles between UConn and Tennessee, and UConn vs. Notre Dame. Auriemma’s Huskies played the Pat Summit-led Lady Vols four times in title games and Muffet McGraw’s Fighting Irish twice, though in that span there were 15 games in four years when they were in the Big East together. It is the Huskies’ second title game against Staley and the Gamecocks.
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks will attempt to win back-to-back national titles on Sunday. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
(Sean Rayford via Getty Images)
The first meeting between UConn and South Carolina came in 2008. Auriemma said he scheduled it because he has “a lot of respect” for Staley. The Huskies won the first, 97-39, and each of the next two by at least 20. South Carolina won its first in the series in 2020 during Boston’s freshman season and are 5-2 in the games since starting with that win.
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“It’s almost like a recreation of those two things going on where two teams are somewhat sort of constantly in each other’s way, although we haven’t been able to provide the kind of — yeah, we beat them Paige’s freshman year — but we haven’t been able to provide the kind of punch-back until this year that I hoped that that rivalry demands and needs,” Auriemma said.
That South Carolina did what those other rivals couldn’t in serving Auriemma and UConn their only national title game loss (11-1) is what set up the potential for a sentimental Bueckers goodbye.
“She’s a great player, but just because you’re a great player doesn’t mean you need to win the national championship to legitimize it,” Staley said. “Paige is legit. She was legit from the moment she stepped on this stage. Or prior to [the title game] in Minnesota. Her career is legendary. She will leave a legacy at UConn whether she wins one or not.”
Staley hopes it’s not at the cost of her seniors’ own legacies.
