WASHINGTON — The South Carolina women’s basketball team has won three national championships under coach Dawn Staley. However, on Tuesday, winning the Nasdaq Corporate Cup.
That was five months ago, after defeating Iowa in the title game and the Gamecocks returned to the White House to meet with President Joe Biden, who applauded the coach’s work.
‘You lost five starters both in the WNBA draft and graduation; there were questions about contending for the championship this year,’ Biden pointed. “But for the record, and this is God’s truth: I voted for you to win. I got a lot of money – no, I’m only kidding”.
Biden arrived in, as well as left the East Room with Staley who recently visited the 2024 Paris Olympics as a member of the United States official presidential delegation led by the First Lady Jill Biden. The president had fun in the match and said he knows why South Carolina has grown so fast in women’s basketball; ‘You have a girl from Philly in charge of this team.’
However, in the early Donald Trump presidency, Staley refused to go to the White House having the Gamecocks win the first NCAA championship in 2017. The team also failed to celebrate the 2022 title because they could not hold celebrations in Washington because of a clash of schedules. Staley called Tuesday’s visit ‘a teachable moment for my team’ and mentioned the decision made in 2015 to bring down the Confederate flag – ‘a banner of division and bigotry’ – in front of the state capitol in South Carolina.
“It was not only that a symbol was taken down, but people unifying for a common goal and dream, a vision of forward movement, justice and equality,” Staley added. Today, standing before you, my staff, my team, and I represent Diversity, Inclusiveness, and Unity: The right way, the proper way, the accountable way, the professional way, the humble way, the moral way, and the ethical way to do things; I wish and hope that this message and this moment shall serve as a strong reminder to my team as to why we do things this way.
Kentucky Women’s basketball team continued to reign again by posting 37-3 and equaling that of the men’s team young Huskies by out-scoring their opponents by an average of 23 points in six games during the NCAA tournament.
