Staley Breaks Down Exhibition Opener: Rotations, Rebounding Woes, and a One-of-a-Kind Setting / sportsearchers.com

Following South Carolina’s outdoor exhibition against College of Charleston at the LinkU Invitational, Dawn Staley offered candid insight into how she viewed the game, from roster management to the event’s significance for women’s basketball.

Rotating Players and Building Trust

With roughly half the roster inactive, Staley used the exhibition as a chance to evaluate younger players in limited stretches. She framed the approach with a patient perspective: “We always gonna get everybody’s best. So, you know, this thing is, it’s not a marathon. It’s not, well, marathon’s not one in the first mile.” She explained the purpose behind giving less-experienced players run: “I think it allows you to see some younger players. Can they be disciplined in a basketball game and give you what you need in small stretches, right? So it’s about building trust with the coaching staff. It’s about getting just some experience under their belts, playing another D1 school.”

Credit to Charleston and a Record-Setting Rebounding Problem

Staley didn’t downplay the opposition, praising College of Charleston’s toughness while acknowledging a glaring weakness: “College of Charleston played tough. I mean, they got offensive rebound after offensive rebound. We probably got a, they broke a record against us when it comes to offensive rebounding. And I think it’s just great. It just shows us where we are weak in some areas, and we gotta get better.”

The Significance of the Standalone Spotlight

Asked about the importance of women’s basketball getting its own showcase under the lights, Staley credited the event’s organizers for recognizing the sport’s growth: “I think you probably invited us to this knowing that women’s basketball’s on the rise and then we’re in the state of South Carolina where we build a pretty good fan base that will come and watch us play.” She encouraged other programs to experience similar events: “I think more women’s basketball programs and men’s programs should experience this, ’cause this is really one of a kind, really is safe, right? And you give a bird’s eye view of what teams look like early on. It’s not the finished product, so you’ll see some improvement from now until the next time we have an exhibition game, which is, I think, October.”

A Deliberately Simplified Game Plan

Staley revealed the team intentionally limited its playbook because the game was streamed publicly, cautious about giving early opponents a preview: “I thought we tried to share the ball. I thought our players tried to play the way we needed them to play. Obviously, we shrunk our playbook and didn’t want to insert a lot of what we’ve been working on because it was streamed and we don’t want to help our first opponents prepare for our team.” Even so, she emphasized discipline as the takeaway: “I thought they just did a good job at being disciplined, and if we can apply discipline to any part of our game plan, we’re going to be better because of it.”

Areas for Improvement and Team Identity

Staley acknowledged both positives and negatives, highlighting rebounding and turnovers as primary concerns: “I thought we saw some things that we liked to see and saw some things we didn’t like to see. But I think these type of games and playing this early in the season, it will expose you to some things that you can correct. I mean, obviously, it’s too many offensive rebounds, right? Too many, probably turnovers, live ball turnovers.” She also noted the team is still discovering its identity: “This team is still trying to figure out who they are, what their identity is. And, I mean, we play players that probably play a lot more in the game than they are getting reps in practice… depending on who we have, on any given night, it could be the same nine players, and then it ends up being eight players. So, but I thought it was some good stuff.”