A near-perfect run that would have strengthened South Carolina’s No.1 seed talks ended in a disappointing loss to Texas. Dawn Staley’s team surprisingly lost the SEC Championship finals last week. The loss doesn’t cost them much of their March Madness ceiling. Head coach Staley has also expressed confidence in her team, but for any team coached by her, a loss comes with a reset. And as former national champion Aliyah Boston warns, the response in practice is often more punishing than the defeat itself.

The discussion began on the Post Moves podcast, where Candace Parker shed light on South Carolina’s loss in the SEC finals. Additionally, the three-time WNBA champion also touched upon Staley’s approach following the defeat, while comparing it to a similar position to the one she was in with Tennessee, where head coach Summitt adopted a strict process to make the team better.

“I mean the last time the Gamecocks lost in the SEC tournament to Kentucky, you guys won the National Championships in 2022,” Parker said. And Don is quoted as saying after losing, “It might be the very thing this team needs. I know the two years we won the National Championships. My junior year, we thought, we were the best.”

“We ran through the SEC, undefeated in the regular season, and then we ran into LSU in the semifinals, and we got destroyed. But then it happens to fall where two weeks before the NCAA tournament is spring break, and that’s right after the SEC tournament. So, we practiced, and we got better, and Pat was pissed,” Parker added further.

Boston found a similarity between her and what Parker went through with Summitt ahead of the 2007 NCAA Championships. “That’s what we too when we lost to Kentucky, that’s how it was for us,” Boston said. “We didn’t go home. We couldn’t do anything right. The starters were kicked off the court multiple times. All we did was run. And coach Staley was like, “The next time you lose, you’re going home.”

Similar to this year, South Carolina also lost in the SEC Championship finals during the 21-22 season. Kentucky Wildcats handed them a two-point defeat (64-62), despite being a firm favorite to win the title. But as Boston said, Staley’s approach towards the practice regime changed after this defeat. The focus got firm, and each training drill was done with one goal: the National Championships.

Dawn Staley’s stern regime bore results. The Gamecocks went on to beat teams like North Carolina and Louisville in the initial rounds of the March Madness before taking down the UConn Huskies in the finals. Boston bagged the MVP after recording 16 rebounds in the finals. And quite similarly, Staley might look to run down the same tape for her team after the Texas loss.

As far as we’ve seen, Staley hates losing. But she doesn’t publicly criticize her players; she addresses issues in the locker room. There have been several instances when Staley has silently let her team know that she wasn’t happy with their performance. One such incident took place with Boston, too. It was during a practice session following a loss to Indiana that Staley took her and the rest of the team’s sandwiches.

“We’re like, oh, where are our sandwiches? She’s like, no. After the performance y’all had, maybe y’all ate too much,” Boston revealed a few days ago.

Dawn Staley’s team has a one-week break before the March Madness. This is a perfect period for her to reiterate the team’s objective and remind them of their March Madness ceiling. But going into the break, Staley might be forced to counter certain new weaknesses.

Aliyah Boston refuses to believe a bigger picture behind Dawn Staley’s South Carolina’s loss to Texas

The SEC Championship final loss to Texas was South Carolina’s second reckoning with the Longhorns this season. Vic Schaefer’s team remains the only team across SEC play and tournament to get the better of Dawn Staley’s team. As a result, questions may arise about whether Texas has tapped into a certain weakness of South Carolina. Former player Aliyah Boston says no for now.

“I mean, Texas, they were on fire from the jump,” Boston said. “I think they just caught them on a bad day.”

Notably, head coach Staley shared her perspective after the loss, stating that the tiring schedule of the SEC Tournament caught up with them. With a lack of rotational depth, the Gamecocks’ players struggled even more. Given Staley’s assessment, Boston’s statement makes perfect sense, and the game can be considered a rare off day for South Carolina.

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But a deeper look into the game’s box score also shows that there were certain errors in the Texas game that fell far short of the ideals Staley has instilled in the program over the years. The Gamecocks struggled with ball security, committing 14 turnovers. It’s far away from the season average of 12.8 they have had this year. On top of that, South Carolina’s shooting from the 3-point line was cold, and the team also missed 11 free throws. These flaws combined in the finals to hurt the Gamecocks even harder than they expected.

Despite the loss, Dawn Staley is quite confident that her team will turn it around in the March Madness. But she will also have to validate whether these on-court errors were a one-off or a recurring issue against ranked teams.