Dawn Staley eyes another title as South Carolina meets UCLA in the NCAA women’s final

PHOENIX (AP) - Dawn Staley has fond memories of her first trip as a coach to the NCAA championship game. It ended with South Carolina's first national title nine years ago.

She hopes that UCLA's first time playing for an NCAA title won't end the same way for the Bruins, who face the Gamecocks on Sunday for the championship.

"It's special. I mean, it's special. You're playing on the last day of college women's basketball," Staley said. "It's a great honor and a great feat whether you win or lose. You also are measuring where your program can continue to go. For us, 2017, we won it. I'm hoping that's not the same for UCLA on Sunday."

Since winning that first title, Staley has led the Gamecocks to two more, and she's reached the title game in four of the past five seasons. A win against UCLA would tie Staley with LSU's Kim Mulkey for third most titles by a coach, trailing only Geno Auriemma and the late Pat Summitt.

Staley isn't concerned about her place in history.

"I don't really compare myself to anybody when it comes to it," she said. "I mean, I do what I do for our players. I do what I do for the coaches that I work with every single day. Those are the people that are in the trenches. Other people outside of us, I've never really compared myself to."

UCLA's run to its first championship game started last year with a blowout loss to UConn in last year's Final Four. The Bruins used that as motivation during their return to the national semifinals.

The Bruins' only loss this year came to Texas in November. UCLA got its revenge with a 51-44 win in the Final Four. Now the Bruins are vying for their first national championship since 1978, when women's basketball was governed by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.

"We've been very businesslike. We were not jumping around in the locker room. We were not celebrating," UCLA coach Cori Close said. "We have really come to this tournament very focused. We really believe that the job wasn't done yet. We want to have a chance to compete for a national championship. We want to do that the highest of levels."

Close said after the win over Texas that it felt like a rugby match. She hopes for a more "aesthetically pleasing game" against the Gamecocks.

"I do think we all want the same thing. The officiating, the coaches, the players, we all want the same thing," she said. "We want to have a stylistic game that shows off the progress of the game, that continues to grow the game nationally to people who are tuning in. We just have to figure out where that gap is and how we can close it."

South Carolina freshman Agot Makeer has had an incredible NCAA Tournament, scoring in double figures in all five games after only doing that three times in the Gamecocks' 33 previous games. Makeer is averaging 14.6 points while shooting 55.6% from the field during March Madness.

"I feel like my mindset changed. Starting in the SEC Tournament, I just started approaching games differently," she said. "And I feel like it wasn't just one-dimensional thinking. I just wanted to go and do whatever I can to get the team to win. So just in this tournament, I've just thought whatever I can do to get this team a win is what I need to do."