SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 D3
had 28 points and 22 rebounds in
that game, setting an NCAA rec-
ord for rebounds in the round of
16 or later. The national player of
the year is coming off 23 points
and 18 rebounds in a 72-59 win
against Louisville in Friday’s na-
tional semifinal at Target Center.
Auriemma, meanwhile, has
the second-seeded Huskies
(30-5) in the national champion-
ship game for the 12th time.
Connecticut is 11-0 in NCAA
tournament finals and last won
the title in 2016 to cap an unprec-edented streak of four national
championships.
The second-winningest coach
in the sport’s history got his
initial sampling of the NCAA
tournament while on Ryan’s
staff. The Cavaliers made their
first appearance in 1984 and
went again in 1985 before Auri-
emma departed to build the pro-
gram in Storrs, Conn.
Ryan hired Auriemma after he
spent two seasons as an assistant
at Saint Joseph’s and three years
as an assistant at Bishop KenrickHigh, both in the Philadelphia
metropolitan area, where he
grew up.
“U-Va. was a different story,
much bigger school, bigger ev-
erything, bigger expectations,”
Auriemma said. “Just bigger in
every way. So running a big
program was something I had
never experienced before. Re-
cruiting at that level was some-
thing I had never experienced
before. The organization that it
takes to make that happen on a
regular basis was completelynew to me, and Debbie treated
me like I treat my staff.”
Ten years after leaving Vir-
ginia, Auriemma found himself
coaching against his mentor in
the NCAA tournament’s region
finals. Connecticut beat Virginia,
67-63, and then vanquished tra-
ditional powers Stanford and
Tennessee to win its first NCAA
title.
The Final Four that season
took place in Minneapolis, where
the Huskies are seeking a 16th
straight win Sunday night in aseason in which they had 11 start-
ing lineups because of injuries
and eight of 12 players on the
roster who missed at least two
games because of injury or ill-
ness.
“I’ve said this before: The
world does funny things to you,
man, if you’re around long
enough,” Auriemma said. “But I
think there were a lot of players,
including Dawn Staley, that Deb-
bie had a tremendous effect on.
It’s probably no surprise that
[Staley] went into coaching.”NCAA Tournament
women’s hoops. She knows she
receives more than she gives,
and she appreciates everything
about her blessed life in
basketball. It’s crazy to her that
two members of her first
recruiting class at Temple now
work on the South Carolina
staff: Ariana Moore, special
assistant to the head coach, and
Cynthia Jordan, director of
basketball operations.
“My players are, like, my best
friends now,” Staley said. “It’s
that type of relationship.”
When considering all the
factors, she isn’t shy about
making the grand admission:
Staley, the player, could go with
the best who have ever dribbled.
But Staley, the coach, is
eclipsing her.
“I’m probably a better coach,”
she said. “Probably a better
coach. I say that because I’ve
had a longer career as a coach.
That’s one. Two, I think my
impact is far [greater]. Like, I
can make more of an impact as
a coach than I did as a player.
“So that’s your answer.”
She laughed and let the last
bit of her playing bravado go.they want, and then we figure
out a plan to make that work.
Sometimes when you work with
young people, you let them
talk. I’m not telling them what
to do. I’m just listening to
them.
“Then they’ll start asking
questions. When they start
asking questions, that’s when
you can really move the chain.
So I’ve done that with teams
that I’ve played with as a point
guard, and I’ve found my second
skin in coaching.”
Staley keeps joking about a
premature ending. At the Tokyo
Olympics, she declared she
would not return to lead the
team in 2024, but later she
softened the Team USA
retirement talk. On Saturday,
when reminded that Auriemma
and Stanford Coach Tara
VanDerveer are both 68, Staley
declared, “I won’t be here at 68.”
Then she laughed.
As much as she may not want
to grow old in coaching, she
knows her importance to the
game. She embraces all that
comes with being the most
outspoken voice for progress inpicture, and I’ve carried that. It
doesn’t matter if it’s basketball
or if it’s just life. I’m a point
guard, so we’re trained to see it
all. We’re trained to see the big
picture.”
Sometimes you can still see
the player in Staley. She will tell
stories. When shooting around,
she will turn competitive and
accept challenges. But while her
team employs a hard-nosed and
defensive style that mirrors the
way Staley played, she’s not
coaching to live vicariously
through her players. On the
sideline, just like on the court,
she’s all about the assist.
She is genuine in wanting to
make people better through
basketball. It has been 34 years
since the flashy floor general
from Philadelphia came to
Virginia to play for Coach
Debbie Ryan. Over more than
three decades in the public eye,
her leadership has remained a
defining trait.
“I just try to meet people
where they are,” Staley said.
“Not be judgmental. Just meet
them where they are. Then I
talk to them to figure out whatstop as long as she’s there.”
As extraordinary as Staley
was at running a team, her
knack for running a program is
an even better story. She’s
forging a career that already
holds its own next to any
women’s coach not named Pat
Summitt or Auriemma, and she
did it while having to create an
infrastructure for success at
two very different schools, all
during a time of increased
parity in the sport. She didn’t
arrive and dominate because of
her name. For all the winning
Staley has enjoyed, South
Carolina didn’t make its first
Final Four until 2015, which
was her seventh season in
Columbia and her 15th in
coaching.
She hasn’t taken the easy
route. Unlike former players of
her caliber, she hasn’t become
frustrated with the process and
the inability to simply take the
basketball and impose her will.
“I’m a point guard,” Staley
said. “I’ve always looked at the
game differently than a shooting
guard or a post player. I’ve
always been able to see the bigamounts to a singular status in
history.
“Coach, she’s the GOAT,”
South Carolina guard Zia Cooke
said, and even though young
people hand out the Greatest of
All Time designation like
napkins, Cooke spoke with so
much conviction it seemed to be
novel praise.
Staley had no interest in
coaching until she found herself
so fascinated with the challenge
of building a program at Temple
that she took the job while still
playing in the WNBA. She was- The final seven years of her
playing career coincided with
the beginning of her run in
coaching.
She made Temple a perennial
NCAA tournament team, and
then she left Philadelphia, her
hometown, for South Carolina
in 2008. Now the Gamecocks
are a consistent top-10 team,
and they have grown into one of
the strongest brands in women’s
basketball.
“That train is going,”
Connecticut Coach Geno
Auriemma said of Staley’s
program. “And it’s not going to
appearances, Staley would
become just the seventh
Division I women’s coach to
capture multiple national
championships.
In the most exclusive wing of
the Naismith Hall of Fame, five
people bask in double
transcendence for their skills in
sneakers and with the whistle:
Bill Sharman, John Wooden,
Lenny Wilkens, Tommy
Heinsohn and Bill Russell.
That’s the list, all men. No
woman has been inducted as a
player and again as a coach.
Staley could retire tomorrow
and get there. It should be
inevitable. Assuming she
remains active, she will be
eligible for induction as a coach
in four years, after her
26th season in coaching. She
was elected for her playing
career in 2013. If logic wins, she
will have her clipboard
immortalized less than 15 years
after her initial recognition.
It’s unprecedented to achieve
so much long before turning 60.
Staley’s plurality in the game
BREWER FROM D1
JERRY BREWER
A Hall of Famer on the floor, Gamecocks’ Staley may be even better on the sideline
BY GENE WANGminneapolis — Long before
South Carolina’s Dawn Staley
and Connecticut’s Geno Auriem-
ma ascended to the highest levels
of women’s college basketball,
the coaches in Sunday night’s
national championship game
honed their craft under the influ-
ence of Debbie Ryan, the former
Virginia coach whose impact on
both continues to resonate dec-
ades after they moved on from
Charlottesville.
Staley was Ryan’s most deco-
rated player, directing the Cava-
liers to three Final Four appear-
ances and one national champi-
onship game from 1989 through
1992 as the starting point guard.
She completed her college career
as V irginia’s all-time scoring
leader and compiled the most
assists in ACC history.
Four years before Staley ar-
rived at Virginia amid much
acclaim, Auriemma was serving
in the last of his five years as an
assistant under Ryan, who re-
tired in 2011 with 739 career
wins, 11 ACC regular season titles
and seven ACC coach of the year
awards.
“Debbie was great,” Staley
said. “She allowed me to make
mistakes through trial and error.
It wasn’t like, ‘Don’t do this, don’t
do that.’ She was like, you know:
‘In instances, here’s when you
can do this. Here’s another op-
tion.’ I take som e of my coaching
to a certain degree in allowing
our players to be who they are,
meet them where they are and
just take them to where they
want to go, and that’s the mental-
ity that Debbie had with me.”
Much like her coaching men-
tor, Staley has assembled an elite
program from humble begin-
nings.
Top-seeded South Carolina
had not been to an NCAA tourna-
ment in the five years before
Staley took over as coach in 2008.
Four seasons later the Game-
cocks reached the regional semi-
finals. In 2017, they won the
school’s first national champion-
ship.
This season, Staley has guided
South Carolina (34-2) to a second
straight Final Four and a fourth
appearance in seven years. The
Gamecocks’ winning percentage
(.944) is the highest in program
history apart from when they
went 32-1 during a 2019-20 sea-
son in which there was no NCAA
tournament amid the coronavi-
rus pandemic.
“You have coaches that come
in and out of your lives, and for
her, Debbie knew how to treat me
as a player,” Staley said. “I was a
player from Philly. I was Philly
through and through, didn’t real-
ly have the fundamentals down
pat. I could play. I could pass. I’ve
got flare to my game. I was just a
hard-nosed player, one that she
didn’t try to contain.”
Staley has adopted a similar
approach to coaching her players
during South Carolina’s run to
the national championship game
featuring four wins in the NCAA
tournament by double digits.
The closest margin the Game-
cocks have faced was a 69-61
victory over North Carolina in
the Greensboro Region semifi-
nals.
Junior forward Aliyah Boston
Coaches carry legacy of U-Va. legend Ryan into final
Before leading their programs to the top of women’s basketball, South Carolina’s Staley and Connecticut’s A uriemma learned from one of the best
WADE PAYNE/ASSOCIATED PRESSERIC GAY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
While leading Virginia, Debbie Ryan, top, h ad South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley, above left, as a star player and Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma, above, as an assistant.ERIC GAY/ASSOCIATED PRESS