Dawn Staley has cemented her status as one of the greatest coaches in women’s college basketball history, guiding South Carolina to three national championships and seven Final Four appearances. But her path to dominance hasn’t come without heartbreak — and no loss stung more than the 2023 Final Four defeat to Caitlin Clark and Iowa.
“That one hurt me really bad,” Staley said on the “Higher Learning” podcast. “The failures hurt more than the victories.”
South Carolina entered the 2023 Final Four as the reigning national champion on a 42-game win streak, unbeaten and widely considered the favorite. But Clark’s 41-point performance — a women’s Final Four record — ended the Gamecocks’ run with a 77-73 loss. When asked if that defeat was the toughest of her career, Staley paused for a moment before answering.
“Yes — not for me, for my players,” Staley said. “We had a great team. They did all the right things. Great people, great competitors, never complained. Like when I tell you for four years my players, I would say 90% of the time, never complained. So I wanted them to win. I wanted them to go off with a bang. And when that didn’t happen, they were hurt. And that hurt me. That hurt me to my core.”
South Carolina got its redemption the following year, defeating Clark and Iowa in the national championship game, 87–75. Clark scored a game-high 30 points, but it wasn’t enough in the final game of her historic college career before being selected No. 1 overall by the Indiana Fever in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
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“It didn’t hurt me enough to didn’t think there was a God, but I did question why,” Staley continued. “I needed to know why. But, the answer to the why happened a year later. ‘I can show you better than I can tell you.’ So God left me on the ‘why’ and then followed it up and I had no words besides, it’s an uncommon favor.”
Staley recently published her first book, “Uncommon Favor,” which details her journey to success and the challenges she faced. Staley became the coach at South Carolina in 2008 after eight seasons at Temple. The former six-time WNBA All-Star won three Olympic gold medals as a player and another as a coach at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
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