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CLEVELAND — Dawn Staley still looks back on the big mistake of 1991.
It was March 31st, 33 years ago. Staley was a point guard for the Virginia Cavaliers and was the best player in America.
The Cavaliers were leading by five points with 1:25 left in regulation in the national championship game between the Tennessee Lady Vols and legendary coach Pat Summitt.
Then, all of a sudden, they tied the score with four seconds left. Then-UVA coach Debby Ryan called a timeout and set up a play for Staley to get to the rim. (Back then you couldn’t advance the ball at the last moment.)
Staley got the inbounds, took off, got to the basket, stretched through traffic to the rim…and missed. Virginia got the board and looked again, but he couldn’t score. The game went into double overtime, Staley fouled out, and Virginia lost 70-67.
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She finished the game with 28 points, 11 rebounds, six assists, and three steals and was named the Most Valuable Player of the Final Four, but it was a game that haunted Staley for years.
“We still talk about it to this day: She was stuck in traffic and should have fallen two feet down,” Ryan told USA TODAY Sports. “She’s just as competitive today as she was then.”
But “we worked it out in 2017,” Ryan said, referring to Staley’s first championship as coach at the University of South Carolina.
And now, after leading the Shamcocks to their third national title, 1991 is a (very) distant memory.
On Sunday, Staley’s team defeated Iowa State 87-75 to win its third NCAA championship. She joins Summitt (eight), UW’s Geno Auriemma (11), LSU’s Kim Mulkey (four) and Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer (three) in women’s basketball with three or more. He became the fifth head coach and the first black coach to win the title.
Staley was emotional throughout the game. She was close to tears during an altercation with her officials during the first half when Iowa built an 11-point lead., Afterwards, she said she was experiencing “a bit of PTSD.” That’s because she “didn’t want what happened last year (Iowa beating South Carolina in the national semifinals) to happen this year,” she said.
After South Carolina’s victory, completing a perfect 38-0 season, Staley was handed the trophy and burst into tears.
“You carry the weight of all the players, coaches and staff who have put so much effort into our team,” she said. “And it’s a heavy burden to get through the job undefeated. You get emotional because you want that for them.”
Staley’s third championship in the last seven championships is a testament to the fact that one of the greatest point guards of all time is running the best program in this era of women’s basketball. South Carolina’s perfect 38-0 season, the 10-time undefeated NCAA women’s basketball champion, is even more impressive considering its explosive parity across the sport.
Staley didn’t have the joy of winning a title as a player, but as the Gamecocks prepare to face Iowa on Saturday, he reflects.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” she said of the 1991 breakup. “The fact that we won in 2017 made it really special. … I never thought I’d be a coach. I thought I would be. Once I started, I wanted to check that (national championship) box.”
She was pleased to find that she enjoyed winning as much as a coach, if not more so, than as a player. (Although Staley doesn’t have her NCAA title-winning experience, keep in mind that she has many accomplishments as an individual, including her three gold medals at the Olympics.)
“When you win as a coach, you have a lot more people to celebrate with,” Staley said. “I am very happy.”
For Staley, those aren’t empty words. When she won her first championship in 2017, she had mini replicas of the national championship trophy made for her teammates and coaches at Virginia. The reason: “I wanted them to feel something tangible about winning a national championship, because they gave me the motivation to want to do it.”
Ryan echoed Staley’s sentiments about sharing his joy with others, saying that when you win as a coach, “it’s a different dynamic.” She still has her 2017 trophy, and although she doesn’t need or expect any more replicas, Ryan suspects Staley is just starting a collection.
“She still has the drive she had when she was a player,” Ryan said. “I always felt she was going to be a great coach. You could almost have predicted this. And she’s just starting to dominate her scene now.”
There’s no question that the 1991 championship hurt Staley deeply. But it didn’t hurt her. It hurt her, but her hurt faded with her time and other trophies.
Imagine how far away they will feel when she wins for the fourth time.
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