South Carolina Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley has issued a playful yet serious warning to the Seattle Storm with the arrival of her former players. On Thursday, July 10, it was announced that Las Vegas Aces guard and former Gamecocks standout is signing with coach Noelle Quinn’s Storm after spending the first 16 games of the 2025 season with the aforementioned team.
The move has been met with rejoice by many, especially by the Gamecocks faithful, including Staley. With this, she uploaded a photo on X on the same day that shows her in a video call with both Mitchell and current Seattle Storm guard Zia Cooke, who also played for South Carolina during her college basketball days, as the two WNBA players were captured already in the gym working out.
“@GamecockWBB unite in the @wnba again…this time @seattlestorm! Take care of my peeps Seattle!!!,” Staley captioned her post.
@GamecockWBB unite in the @wnba again…..this time @seattlestorm! Take care of my peeps Seattle!!! 🥰🥰🥰 pic.twitter.com/Gcj60zLiA0
— dawnstaley (@dawnstaley) July 10, 2025
As Staley is asserting to the Storm to take care of her former players, she is, overall, just celebrating the fact that another batch of her Gamecocks are together in a WNBA team. The Storm currently have a 12-8 record and is sitting as the third seed in the Western Conference. Cooke has helped this above .500 standing with her 2025 averages of 3.2 points and 0.6 rebounds in around 11.1 minutes a game.
Mitchell is coming in as a 10-year league veteran who has enjoyed individual success in teams like the Indiana Fever, the Minnesota Lynx, and the Connecticut Sun. In 16 games for this season with the Aces, she has tallied 3.7 points and 1.8 rebounds in around 13. minutes per contest.
Both Mitchell and Cooke previously played out their years of collegiate hoops eligibility with Staley’s Gamecocks, with the former’s tenure being from 2012 to 2016 while the latter was a part of the program from 2019 to 2023. In fact, for Cooke’s case, she was a part of the 2022 Gamecocks team that won that year’s NCAA championship after they defeated the UConn Huskies in the winner-take-all game by 15 points, 64-49.
Another South Carolina Gamecocks Duo Has Formed In The Atlanta Dream This Season
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Besides Tiffany Mitchell and Zia Cooke, coach Karl Smesko’s Atlanta Dream has also experienced the joining of forces of two South Carolina Gamecocks products in Allisha Gray and Te-Hina Paopao. Earlier this year, Gray, who is in her ninth WNBA season, welcomed the arrival of Paopao, who was drafted in the 2025 draft by the Dream with the 18th overall pick in the second round.
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