Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks had several encounters with Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes. Some were tough and ended their season, but she still holds bragging rights over them.
The Gamecocks were one of two teams that prevented Clark from winning the highly coveted national championship that would’ve cemented her as the women’s college basketball GOAT.
In a recent interview, the legendary coach talked about her strategy to beat Clark in the title game, stating that her team couldn’t allow her to turn into a playmaker.
Dawn Staley talks guarding Caitlin Clark in the national championship game
“The most dangerous thing about Caitlin Clark is her passing ability,” Dawn Staley said on Kylie Kelce’s podcast. “Her ability to make other people better, other people’s production along with her production. That’s how you win. If you could take that away — and that was our emphasis when we won, when we beat them in the finals last year — we said, ‘Caitlin Clark’s gonna get 30.’ It is — she can’t have 12 assists.”
The renowned coach continued by stating that Clark was elite at making everybody around her better, so, given her team’s own limitations, the best way to stop Iowa was to prevent Clark from feeding her teammates:
“Because if she’s got 12 assists, then she’s involving her teammates in a way that doesn’t quite add up. We can’t produce enough points like they can. And it’s probably easy points. They’re probably layups. Those 12 assists are probably layups. They’re not three-point shots, because we could defend that. It’s hard to defend a layup in transition when she’s picking you apart,” she continued.
At the end of the day, there’s only so much you can do when it comes to facing a player of Clark’s caliber. You can’t stop them; you can only hope to contain them. Fortunately for her, it worked, as they held her to just five assists in the title-clinching game.