The two pre-eminent coaches of female university basketball will meet during the national female championship match of Division I of the NCAA on Sunday.
Geno Auriemma led Uconn to 11 national titles, while the southern Carolina head coach Dawn Staley led Gamecocks to three championships – including the title 2024. Uconn and the South Carolina will fight for the 2025 championship in Tampa, Florida, later on Sunday.
Staley is one of the high-level personalities of university basketball, and she has often shared her reflections on the problem with which sport can face at some point. In the middle of the continuation of the consecutive national titles by Gamecocks, Staley spoke of the stories surrounding the star of the Uconn, Paige Bueckers, with regard to the framework of female university basketball.
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Caroline southern Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley during the Texas Longhorns match during the NCAA semi-final in Amalie Arena on April 4, 2025 in Tampa, Florida. (Photos Ben Salomon / NCAA via Getty Images)
Staley underlined the stories surrounding the former star of the Iowa Hawkeyes Caitlin Clark when she talked about the conversations currently thrown around Bueckers.
Clark’s individual achievements during his ascent towards celebrity in the past two years have dominated media coverage. Clark was largely, and in some cases only, credited with the increase in the popularity of women’s basketball.
The lack of popularity of Uconn Star Paige Bueckers in the tournament has a racial component, suggests an ex-NBA
Speaking of Bueckers and the pursuit of his first career championship, Staley suggested that there was a tendency “to forget the story about what (South Carolina players) were able to do, to go for their third (national championship) in four years”.
Head coach Dawn Staley of Gamecocks made gestures during the match of Georgia Lady Bulldogs in Colonial Life Arena on February 18, 2024, in Columbia, in South Carolina. (Jacob Kupferman / Getty images)
“Sometimes we create these accounts on the big players – Caitlin was one of them; Paige is one of them right now – and we tend to forget the story about what our children have been able to do, going for their third in four years,” Staley said at a press conference on Saturday.
“There is a sentimental story on Paige. A great player of oddity. Everyone would start his franchise with Paige because of her effective way of playing, because she is a winner, because she knows the brain game in the draft of the WNBA. And she will be an Olympian. We disintegrate, whether you want to believe it or not. It is everywhere in all that.”
“And she is a great player, but it is not because you are a great player that you have to win the national championship to legitimize it. Paige is legitimate. She was legitimate from the moment she went on this scene or before, in Minnesota.
Staley then underlined the experience of Southern Carolina during last year’s race for the national title.
“I just want to put it.
The guard of Uconn Paige Bueckers passed the ball during the Sweet 16 match against Oklahoma, Saturday March 29, 2025, in Spokane, Washington. (AP photo / Jenny Kane)
Staley then expressed his hopes for a more balanced approach.
“I want the feelings to concern our players and what our players have been able to do-also because there is room to make both,” she said. “We can raise Paige because it deserves it and raise our players because they deserve this. And that did not speak enough. There is room for that in our game. Room for Jose. Room for our game, so that we are all covered. Do not choose the story, we all create the story of our game.”
On Saturday, ESPN included quotes from the Staley media session in an article covering the story of Bueckers. The Hoops X of network X, formerly known as Twitter, counts, also shared an article with a link to history.
“Dawn Staley says that the story around Paige Bueckers and its quest to win a title overshadowed the exploits of South Carolina”, the post on X Read. Staley challenged the way his comments were presented and responded to the position. “Mounts! Fix your title, please!” South Carolina wrote on X.
The South Carolina remained unbeaten last season and beat Clark and the Hawkeyes in the championship match. Iowa also failed in the match for the national title of 2023, because LSU dominated the Hawkeyes in the match for the title of this year.
Caitlin Clark of Iowa during the LSU match at American Airlines Arena Dallas. (Greg Nelson / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
Clark never won a championship during his university career. Nevertheless, it is widely considered as one of the greatest players in women’s university basketball – which seems to speak to Staley de Bueckers does not need to “win the national championship to legitimize” the greatness of a player.
South Carolina and Uconn go at 3 p.m. HE to Amalie Arena.
