Dawn Staley maintained her positive attitude despite South Carolina’s recent setback against UCLA.

Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks suffered their first defeat of the 2024-25 season this Sunday, suffering a crushing 62-77 loss at the hands of the UCLA Bruins. Following the game, Bruins head coach Cori Close gave Staley her flowers and showed immense respect but brimmed with confidence by admitting they were expecting the game to end with a victory.

Despite the defeat at Los Angeles, Staley maintained her cool demeanor ahead of their trip to Florida for the Fort Myers Tipoff. While addressing the media during their latest practice session earlier today, Staley spoke volumes of her team’s resilience, dubbing the loss to the Bruins as a key learning lesson that will help the reigning national champions improve as they go forward.

“That’s what a team does,” said Staley. “This is a resilient group, this is a team that obviously hasn’t dealt with a while lot of losing. But, it’ll shake you for a moment. That 24-hour rule, bask in the glory of a defeat, and you handle a defeat and you handle it with grace, but you handle it with learning lessons.

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She further added:

“Things were exposed and hopefully we can fill some of those holes and get back to happier times.”

Dawn Staley reveals work done to improve South Carolina’s offense

When asked where the Gamecocks need to improve, Dawn Staley was determined to improve her team’s offense, believing there is an inherent need to get her bigger players more involved.

“Our offense is just getting better looks and getting ball movement. The ball’s been sticking too much to individual players and it’s stagnant. We need to get our bigs involved, so we’re going to look to get them the ball in positions that they can score, whether it’s two feet in the paint or whether that’s hitting mid-range shots.”

Although the Gamecocks made eight of 12 three-point attempts against the Bruins, they struggled to make field goals, shooting just 36.4% from the field. The Gamecocks’ loss saw them fall three places to No. 4 in AP’s Top 25 women’s college basketball poll, while the Bruins replaced them at the top, making this the first time they topped the weekly poll in program history.

Dawn Staley will hope that her team can bounce back in Florida when they take on No. 15 Iowa State in the opening game of the Fort Myers tipoff on November 29 at 1:30 PM ET.