South Carolina basketball coach Dawn Staley working with AD Ray Tanner on extension

The best college basketball coach in the country resides in Columbia, South Carolina. Dawn Staley has led the South Carolina basketball team to three National Championships since the 2016-2017 season (and a #1 finish in the 2019-2020 season before it was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic), while no other team has multiple titles during the same stretch of time.

She is not the highest-paid coach in the sport, however. That honor belongs to LSU Tigers coach Kim Mulkey. Staley is tied for second with UConn Huskies headman Geno Auriemma. Staley's current deal (and Auriemma's) was worth around $3.1 Million for the 2023-2024 season. According to University of South Carolina Athletics Director Ray Tanner, that all could be changing soon.

While speaking on 107.5 The Game on Thursday, Tanner confirmed that the Gamecocks and Staley are working on an extension. This isn't the first time that the USC AD has mentioned wanting to re-sign Staley to a new deal, but this time, he provided his hopeful timeline to hosts Jay Phillips and Elijah Campbell.

Tanner said that he hopes Staley will have a new contract extension (likely with a raise) sometime before the South Carolina basketball schedule begins on November 4th in Las Vegas against the Michigan Wolverines. Understandably, Tanner did not provide further details about the contract negotiations.

Staley's South Carolina Gamecocks finished the 2023-2024 season as just the 5th program ever to finish a National Championship season with an undefeated record (joining the UConn Huskies, Baylor Bears, Texas Longhorns, and Tennessee Volunteers). It comes as no surprise that Auriemma and Mulkey coached two of those programs to unblemished records, including a record six times for Auriemma's UConn program.

Coach Staley's team is the favorite to win another title this season as the clear preseason #1 team in America.