Dawn Staley has South Carolina one win away from a 3rd NCAA Tournament title in 4 years

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Dawn Staley and South Carolina are one win away from joining an elite group of programs in women’s basketball history with a third national championship in four seasons.

Only two other schools have accomplished that feat: UConn and Tennessee.

"It's hard to break into what Pat Summitt and Geno (Auriemma)” have done for women’s basketball, Staley said. "It's really hard to even be mentioned in that air. … Anything that you do and you have sustained success is really, really, really hard.

“But once you are able to understand what it takes to succeed there, it's a little easier because you know."

Auriemma and the Huskies stand in the way with the teams set to play Sunday for the NCAA title. It’s been nine years since Auriemma’s team won the championship, which capped off a run of four consecutive titles from 2013-16.

That win was the most recent of the record 11 national titles that Auriemma has won in his four decades at the school.

UConn has only reached the title game once since 2016, and during that drought has come up on the short end of heartbreaking last-second losses in the Final Four on buzzer-beaters. The Huskies’ lone title appearance in the past nine years came in 2022 when Staley’s team beat UConn to start the Gamecocks’ current run of success, a game that ended Auriemma’s perfect record in title games.

Auriemma has a healthy respect for Staley, knowing the South Carolina coach from her playing days at Virginia to her time with USA Basketball. She was an assistant coach for him during the 2016 Olympics before she became the national team’s head coach.

"To be where she is right now and to have done it in the way that she's done it, I have a lot of respect for her," he said. "I have tremendous respect for her knowing how she grew up and how hard she fought to get to where she is today. … You don't get here by accident. You get here by being committed and true to who you are. And she doesn't try to be anything she's not.”

After losing in the 2023 Final Four to Caitlin Clark and Iowa, the Gamecocks had an undefeated season last year to the school’s third title since 2017.

The only UConn player that saw significant time in the title game three years ago against South Carolina was Paige Bueckers. She’ll be playing in her final game for UConn hoping to leave the school with a championship, joining many other Husky greats that have played for Auriemma.

"I think everything in life has kind of taught me not to take things for granted," she said. "Being in the national championship game, it's extremely hard to get to and extremely rewarding to be a part of. And just how much we need to play 40 minutes and how connected we need to stay throughout the game. It's going to be a game of runs. It's extremely high stakes."

The teams met earlier this season and UConn stunned South Carolina with a 29-point victory that ended the Gamecocks’ 71-game home winning streak, winning 87-58 on Feb. 16.

Neither team puts much stock in that game, although BetMGM has the Huskies as 5.5-point favorites despite being the lower-seeded team.

While Staley complimented what Bueckers has accomplished for UConn and women’s basketball during her career, she also believes her team’s dominant run over the past few years merits equal recognition.

When the Gamecocks went undefeated en route to their championship last year, the major storyline was Clark, one of greatest college basketball players trying to capture a national title in her final game.

"Sometimes we create these narratives about great players,” Staley said. “Caitlin was one of them; Paige is one of them right now, and we tend to forget the narrative about what our kids have been able to do."

Staley sees a similar sentimental narrative unfolding around Bueckers, who like Clark, has accomplished just about everything at the college level outside of a title.

"She's a great player but just because you're a great player doesn't mean you need to win the national championship to legitimize it," said Staley, who led Virginia to three Final Finals, but never won a NCAA title. "Paige is legit. She was legit from the moment she stepped on this stage."

Staley’s seniors are also legit. Sania Feagin, Bree Hall and Raven Johnson each will be going for their third national championship in four seasons.

"I want the sentiments to be about our players and what our players have been able to do - equally, because there's room to do both," Staley said. “We can raise Paige up because she deserves that and raise our players up because they deserve that. And that's not talked about enough. There's room for it in our game.”

This is the seventh time The Associated Press preseason Nos. 1 and 2 teams will play in the women's NCAA championship game. The 2022 meeting was the previous time it happened and South Carolina kept the top team unbeaten in those matchups.