After dispatching Kim Mulkey’s LSU Tigers, the South Carolina Gamecocks were in high spirits as they headed to the final of the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament, where they will next take on the No. 3 seed Texas Longhorns. The team was laughing and joking as they headed to the postgame conference, with Raven Johnson finding the courage to poke fun at her coach, Dawn Staley.
As she was speaking to reporters, Johnson noted that their intensity always starts with Dawn Staley herself, saying that the public does not know the real Dawn Staley and that she often gets on her players.
“Y’all don’t know the real her. Let me just tell y’all that. Like she gets in on us,” Raven Johnson joked.
This prompted Staley herself to step in and ask for the staff to cut the mic to stop Johnson from speaking any further in this hilarious exchange.
“Cut the mic!” Dawn Staley said. “Cut the mic, please!”
The point guard then hilariously said that she was about to give Staley “some good stuff” before everybody in the room laughed it off.
LSU actually gave South Carolina a fight, as the Tigers led during halftime, but the Gamecocks bounced back and piled on the pressure to win 83-77. This is now South Carolina’s 19th straight win over LSU, with the Tigers never getting the better of the Gamecocks for several years now.
Dawn Staley Talks About Drilling a Winning Mentality To Her Team
During that same postgame conference, Dawn Staley was asked about the standards she has in her program, and she stated that she tries to instill a winning mentality in her players, and it all starts with their practice habits.
“It’s about habits. We always try to mention to our players, bring your practice habits to the game. Now, you’ve got to have some pretty good practice habits because you’ll bring the bad habits to the game as well… That’s mentality, that’s culture. That’s being a good teammate. That’s respecting the game and approaching it that way. We’ve had enough leadership in the locker room to understand that and to bring that.”
Staley added that players who deviate from the team’s mentality usually feel out of place, and that is why they must meet the standard, which is to win.
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