The Game Day Gang: How Molly Binetti Turned a Pregame Habit Into a South Carolina Coaching Staff Tradition
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Every program has its rituals. The walk-throughs, the shootarounds, the pre-tip playlists. But at South Carolina, there’s one tradition you won’t find in any official game-day itinerary — and it might be the most revealing window into the culture Dawn Staley has built in Columbia.
It starts before sunrise. It happens in hotel ballrooms when it has to. And it’s responsible for some of the most recognizable social media content in women’s college basketball.
It’s called the Game Day Gang, and it all traces back to one woman with a very specific hotel check-in routine.
The Woman Behind the Mirror Selfie
When South Carolina’s traveling party arrives at a hotel, most people do what most people do — find their rooms, decompress, maybe grab food. Molly Binetti does something different.
“That’s always the first move, is to go scope it out,” she said.
Binetti has been South Carolina’s sports performance coach since 2018, which means her job is keeping Staley’s players physically prepared across a grueling season. But the gym reconnaissance isn’t for the players. It’s for the coaches — specifically, to make sure there’s enough space for what has become one of the most quietly important rituals in the program.
Every game day, without exception, Binetti leads the South Carolina coaching staff through a pregame workout. And every game day, she posts a mirror selfie to X documenting it — Binetti front and center, Staley beside her with what has become her signature “shirt-in-mouth mean mug,” and a rotating cast of assistants, trainers, student managers and practice players surrounding them.
Just as reliably, Staley reposts it. The caption is almost always some variation of the same thing: “Game day gang got it in! Thanks Molly!”
What began as a personal habit has become a program institution — and understanding how it got there says a great deal about the environment Staley has cultivated around her staff.
How It Started — and How It Grew
The Game Day Gang didn’t start as a gang at all. For years, it was barely even a group.
“I’ve been doing it since my first year, which was eight seasons ago now,” Binetti said. “When Craig got here, I made him start doing it with me. But it still was maybe two, three, four of us throughout the years.”
Craig Oates, South Carolina’s head athletic trainer, was among the first recruits into the routine — less by choice than by Binetti’s insistence. That pattern of gentle but deliberate recruitment would define how the group grew.
The real turning point came in 2024. During South Carolina’s trip to Paris for a game, the group swelled to somewhere between 12 and 15 participants. Something had shifted — the workout was no longer a fringe habit but a genuine program gathering.
The catalyst, by most accounts, was Staley herself joining the routine that year. The story of exactly how it happened varies slightly in the retelling, but Binetti remembers the moment clearly.
“We’re prepping for Clemson, we had just gotten done with the workout. We were at shootaround, and she had asked a question about it, and then all of a sudden, she was just like, ‘Hmmm, maybe I’ll join,'” Binetti recalled. “And then next game day, she showed up. So that meant, of course, Boyer showed up too.”
That last detail is telling. When Staley commits to something, her staff follows — not out of obligation, but because of the culture she’s established. Associate head coach Lisa Boyer, one of the most respected assistants in women’s college basketball, didn’t need to be convinced once Staley was in.
“It all got started and originated from her, and then everybody else just joined in,” Staley said of Binetti’s role in building the tradition.
What the Workouts Actually Look Like
The Game Day Gang convenes on every single game day — including, notably, national championship day.
“I look forward to a game day workout on national championship day. How freaking cool is that?” Staley said.
The timing varies based on tip-off. Home Thursday night games typically mean a 9 a.m. workout. On the road, it’s always before shootaround, which can mean early starts.
“On the road, it’s always before shootaround,” Binetti said. “Usually it ends up being pretty early — 7, 8, something like that. But it’s just kind of dependent on our schedule. I think we’ve done it as early as 5:30, 5:45, 6 a.m., if we’ve got a noon game. It doesn’t matter the time, Coach is always there.”
That last line — it doesn’t matter the time, Coach is always there — is perhaps the most significant detail in the entire story. Staley, one of the most decorated coaches in the history of the sport, is showing up for a 5:30 a.m. workout before a noon tip. That kind of commitment from the head coach doesn’t just build routine — it builds culture.
Binetti designs each workout herself, tailoring the session to accommodate varying fitness levels and equipment availability. The philosophy is intentional: challenging enough to be worthwhile, flexible enough to be inclusive.
“I try to balance doing stuff that I want to do training, but I also understand that’s not the normal everyday person,” Binetti said. “So I try to cater, tailor it. I think most people want a total body workout. They kind of like more of a circuit style. I switch it up just based on if we’re here, if we’re on the road, and kind of what they have. It really forces me to be creative.”
That creativity has been tested in extreme conditions. The lowest point came during a road trip to Clemson, when the hotel had no gym at all.
“They didn’t even have a gym,” Binetti said. “So I brought out my bands and we did a workout in the ballroom, body weight bands, just random stuff. So that was probably like the worst-case scenario. I can make do with nothing.”
By Binetti’s own admission, the ballroom workout wasn’t exactly a crowd-pleaser.
“That was probably one of the worst workouts that we’ve had, honestly,” she said.
On the other end of the spectrum, a Los Angeles hotel during South Carolina’s trip for The Real SC game against Southern Cal stands as the gold standard — a sprawling, club-level gym open to hotel guests that gave the Game Day Gang essentially unlimited options.
“It was massive. It had everything you could ever think,” Binetti said. “That was probably one of the best ones. We’ve had some pretty good gyms, but that is at the top of my list.”
More Than Fitness — It’s Camaraderie
What makes the Game Day Gang more than just a wellness initiative is what it represents off the weight floor. In a profession defined by long seasons, constant travel, and immense pressure, the pregame workout has become a rare moment of collective release.
For Staley, it’s become something she can’t imagine going without — even if she initially resisted the idea.
“For me, when we’re on the road or when we’re at home, it’s pretty much a little bit of time in which I can decompress,” she said. “Because you’re not prepping for practice or anything like that. And I really didn’t want to do it, but when she asked me, I really couldn’t turn her down. I’m happy I do it, because I feel a lot better about it. I feel more accomplished.”
That phrase — I feel more accomplished — resonates far beyond physical fitness. Staley is describing the psychological value of intentionality before competition; of choosing to do something hard before the hardest thing of the day. It’s the same mindset she instills in her players every season.
Boyer, a veteran coaching voice who has seen what program culture looks like at its best and worst, recognized the workout’s deeper value quickly.
“Some times are harder than others, but Molly puts us through it, and it’s a great tradition, and it’s a time for us to come together,” Boyer said. “Molly’s great, she gets us ready, gets us fired up, and it’s an opportunity for us to come together as a staff and as a unit and do our part.”
The Bigger Picture
It would be easy to look at the Game Day Gang as a charming footnote in the South Carolina women’s basketball story — a social media quirk, a feel-good detail tucked into a season recap.
But that reading undersells what Molly Binetti has actually built. In a program that has won national championships and consistently set the standard for women’s college basketball, the details matter. The rituals matter. The things a staff does when no one is watching — or rather, before anyone else is awake — are often the clearest reflection of a program’s true identity.
South Carolina’s Game Day Gang works out at 5:30 in the morning. In hotel ballrooms if it has to. On national championship day. And the head coach is always there.
That’s not a social media tradition. That’s a winning culture, documented in mirror selfies.
