One loss was something new for South Carolina women’s basketball. Two losses put the Gamecocks in “unfamiliar territory.”
After a brutal loss to UConn on Sunday, coach Dawn Staley and South Carolina now have three, which is more losses than the last two seasons combined.
In eight days, the No. 6 Gamecocks (23-3, 11-1 SEC) lost by four points to now No. 2 Texas and 29 points to now No. 5 UConn.
“You take a loss and have a tendency to think everything is broken but everything is not broken,” Staley said Wednesday. “It really isn’t, we have to get back to our good habits and how we play. This is a part of our journey, the journey last year didn’t have a blemish as far as a loss but there were blemishes, they were just not in the form of a loss. This is part of it, we have to embrace the good, the bad and the ugly of whatever our journey is. We’re still in it, everything we want to accomplish is right there in front of us.”
After losing to UCLA on Nov. 24, the Gamecocks went on to win 17 straight, including a five-game stretch against Top 25 opponents.
The Huskies dismantled the Gamecocks on both sides of the ball, but Staley said all three losses have been more of an internal issue, whether that’s a lack of rebounding and effort like South Carolina had on Sunday or just poor shooting like it dealt with against UCLA.
“Common theme is we just didn’t play,” Staley said. “Like a resemblance of who we are. In the losses, the common theme was people forced us to play their way or self-inflicted, it really just wasn’t us and we have to get back to us.”
On Sunday Staley said she thinks her team is a little bit fatigued both mentally and physically. On Wednesday, she was asked how she walks the line between acknowledging mental exhaustion but also being vocal about who needs to be better.
“I think we all have to (be better),” Staley said. “Our most experienced players have to be better, Pao (Te-Hina Paopao) has to be better, Chloe (Kitts), (Sania) Feagin have to be better. Those are the players with the most experience, they have to be better, they know that.
“I do think it’s a little bit of mental fatigue, I think it’s a little bit of just the grind of the season, it happens. We’ve just done a really good job at disguising it where it doesn’t really spill over to a game in that magnitude but you have to face the music. I’m not shying away from it, I think we do our best work when we’re in this type of situation. We’re going to embrace the loss, learn from it and move on.”
Staley said South Carolina has had two great days of practice preparing for Arkansas on Thursday (7 p.m., SEC Network) and that to improve and move on, the Gamecocks need to play a game.
