The two preeminent coaches in women’s college basketball will meet in Sunday’s NCAA Division I women’s basketball national championship game.
Geno Auriemma has coached UConn to 11 national titles, while South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley has led the Gamecocks to three championships – including the 2024 title. UConn and South Carolina will battle for the 2025 championship in Tampa, Florida, later Sunday.
Staley is one of college basketball’s high-profile figures, and she has often shared her thoughts on whatever issue the sport may be contending with at a given moment. Amid the Gamecocks’ pursuit of back-to-back national titles, Staley spoke out on the narratives surrounding UConn star Paige Bueckers as it relates to the framework of women’s college basketball.
Staley pointed out the narratives surrounding former Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark when she spoke about the conversations currently being thrown around about Bueckers.
Clark’s individual accomplishments during her rise to stardom over the last couple of years dominated media coverage. Clark was largely, and in some instances solely, credited with women’s basketball’s steep rise in popularity.
UCONN STAR PAIGE BUECKERS’ LACK OF POPULARITY IN TOURNEY HAS RACIAL COMPONENT TO IT, EX-NBA PLAYER SUGGESTS
When speaking about Bueckers and the pursuit of her first career championship, Staley suggested there was a tendency “to forget the narrative about what (South Carolina players) have been able to do, going for their third (national championship) in four years.”
“Sometimes we create these narratives about great players – Caitlin was one of them; Paige is one of them right now – and we tend to forget the narrative about what our kids have been able to do, going for their third in four years,” Staley said during a press conference on Saturday.
“There’s a sentimental narrative about Paige. 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. And she’ll be the number one pick in the WNBA draft. And she’ll be an Olympian. She’ll be all those things. But 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. Officials see it. It’s all over TikTok. It’s all over ‘SportsCenter.’ It’s all over all of that.”
“And 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. Paige is legit. She was legit from the moment she stepped on this stage or prior to, in Minnesota. Her career is legendary. She will leave a legacy at UConn whether she wins one or not.”
Staley then pointed to South Carolina’s experience during last year’s run to the national title.
“I just want to put it out there. I can’t not address it because it’s happening. 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.”
Staley then expressed her hopes for a more balanced approach.
“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,” she said. “We can raise Paige up because she deserves that and raise our players up because they deserve that. And that’s not talked about enough. There’s room for it in our game. Room for Jose. Room for our game, for all of us to be covered. Let’s not choose a history, one’s history over another program’s history. Let’s not choose one player over another player’s history because we’re all creating history for our game.”
On Saturday, ESPN included quotes from Staley’s media session in an article covering the Bueckers narrative. The network’s women’s hoops X, formerly known as Twitter, account, also shared a post with a link to the story.
“Dawn Staley says narrative around Paige Bueckers and her quest to win a title has overshadowed South Carolina’s feats,” the post on X read. Staley took issue with how her comments were being presented and responded to the post. “LIES! Fix your headline, please!” the South Carolina wrote on X.
South Carolina went undefeated last season and defeated Clark and the Hawkeyes in the championship game. Iowa also came up short in the 2023 national title game, as LSU dominated the Hawkeyes in that year’s title game.
Clark never won a championship during her college career. Nevertheless, she is widely viewed as one of women’s college basketball’s greatest players – which seems to speak to Staley’s point about Bueckers not needing to “win the national championship to legitimize” a player’s greatness.
South Carolina and UConn tip off at 3 p.m. ET at Amalie Arena.
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