The South Carolina Gamecock women's basketball team is expected to do some big things during the 2026-27 season. Season after season, a big reason that the Gamecocks have national title expectations is the presence of head coach Dawn Staley.
As she enters her 19th season at Columbia, she has built the program into a national powerhouse from the ground up. She's won three national championships at South Carolina, as well as countless other SEC titles and deep NCAA Tournament runs.
But Staley didn't turn South Carolina into a massive success overnight. Her first three seasons in Columbia, the Gamecocks actually finished with mediocre overall records. Staley's team went a combined 42-48 from 2008-2011. In the SEC, the Gamecocks had losing records her first two seasons, finishing 8-8 her third season in 2010-11.
At SEC Tip-Off in Birmingham, Ala., Staley was asked to recall what the early days at South Carolina were like when her teams struggled to win games. She told reporters that initially when she began her tenure as the Gamecocks' tenure, she thought she had made "career suicide."
"I’m going to tell you how I felt," Staley said via Gamecock Central. "'Professional suicide.' How about that? I mean, when [former South Carolina AD] Eric Hyman hired me, I mean, he would always say 'it’s going to take at least three years, three years.' Three years was the time that he used. I’m, like, 'three years? Who’s got time to lose for three years?'"
Staley was hired at South Carolina after spending eight seasons at her alma mater, Temple University, in Philadelphia, Penn. She led the Owls to six NCAA Tournament appearances, as well as four A-10 Conference Tournament Championships.
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It turns out, Hyman was close to accurate on the three years measurement. During her fourth season, South Carolina finished 18-15, and made the WNIT Tournament. Since that 2010-11 season, the Gamecocks have made the NCAA Tournament each and every year. She's led the Gamecocks to three Final Fours, two national championship game berths and several No. 1 seeds. She has 683 career wins as a head coach, including 511 of those at South Carolina.
"It’s patience," Staley continued via GC of her start with the Gamecocks. "You have to have a mindset of knowing things take time, and I would just say, you know, whatever you’re going through, whatever I was going through in that moment is what I needed to know. Sometimes people want to get ahead of what it takes to have sustained success by having instant success, and sometimes that just gives you a false sense of who — how good you are, and I do look back on it."
This is expected to be one of Staley's most talented teams she's had in recent years. The Gamecocks return veterans like Tessa Johnson, Chloe Kitts and Joyce Edwards. But South Carolina also added some big-name new faces in freshmen Oliviyah Edwards and Jerzy Robinson, as well as Texas transfer Jordan Lee.
The Gamecocks' tip off the season on Nov. 4 against the Maryland Terrapins, live from Paris, France.
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