South Carolina Basketball: Sportswriting legend says Dawn Staley is still the GOAT

South Carolina basketball coach Dawn Staley is known these days as the top name in the women's college basketball coaching world. However, before she got into coaching, she was one of the best women's basketball players ever.

Staley was the first player to earn multiple National Player of the Year honors from the USBWA (United States Basketball Writers Association) and just the second to win multiple National Player of the Year trophies from the Naismith Foundation. She brought home her NPOY awards in 1991 and 1992 and then went on to a Hall of Fame career as a professional.

These days, with the increase of media coverage and t influx of stars in the women's game, some of the old greats are forgotten in favor of more modern players.

Long-time basketball writer Bob Ryan doesn't want that to be the case.

According to Ryan, as great as guards like Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers, and JuJu Watkins are in today's game, Dawn Staley is still the best point guard in women's college basketball history.

In a post on Twitter/X, Ryan argued that no point guard ever has been better than Dawn Staley and that no post player ever has been better than Lisa Leslie.

Part of Ryan's arguments was semantics (true "point guard" vs. a player who plays the point guard position), but the opinion of one of the top basketball writers of all-time has to hold some weight.

In the traditional sense of the point guard position, it is hard to argue with Ryan's assessment. Dawn Staley could do it all on the floor: she could score (averaged over 16 points per game), run the offense (averaged over 5.5 assists per game), defend (averaged over 3.5 steals per game), and finish better than almost any guard in history at the rim.

Clark, Watkins, and Bueckers all play point guard (at least at times), but none of those players are traditional point guards. They are shoot-first players who are excellent in their own way as combo guards.

Bob Ryan's GOAT point guard is also one of the best coaches in women's college basketball history, and she will lead her South Carolina basketball squad in search of their third National Championship on Sunday. The Gamecocks will face off against Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes for the title at 3:00 PM EST. The game will be broadcast on ABC and streamed on the ESPN app.