PARIS– Rebuild?
Not a word in Dawn Staley’s vocabulary.
South Carolina’s Hall of Fame and two- time national championship coach may have lost 6-5 2022 national Player of the Year Ailyah Boston, Zia Cookie and Bear Beal and four other seniors from a team that won the 2022 national championship and advanced to three straight Final Fours, but she simply reloaded The sixth- ranked Gamecocks stormed past 10th ranked Notre Dame, 100-71 here last night, at the sold out 3,500 seat Carpentier Arena in the first women’s college game played on European soil.
The game, seen on ESPN, was a high success for promoter Lea Miller, a trail blazer who came up with the idea of combining sport with a unique cultural experience. . The players from both teams benefited from educational tours of the Louvre, a visit to the Eiffel Tower, a youth clinic, a welcome reception at the showroom of a high-end designer and an eloquent night dinner cruise on the Seine. Miller got financial help from Aflac insurance, the title sponsor who is invested in diversity and a place in the spotlight at the start of the college season from ESPN, who did a long piece on the week’s experience leading up to the game.
And the game benefited from the presence of two high class black coaches, Staley and Niele Ivy of Notre Dame, who both understood the significance of the moment.
Miller has taken 100 college teams on summer tours to places like Israel, London, Paris, Rome the Greek Isles, Abu Dabi, Lake Como and Senegal. She has made a name for herself as one of the most influential people in the college game by directing Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas and the Bahamas Bowl. But this was by far her biggest triumph to date.
‘As soon as she called, I said, ‘We’re in,” said Staley, the 2022 Olympic gold medal coach and a close friend of Miller.
“I think it feels pretty darn cool to be trendsetters,”
The international start follows a year for tremendous growth for the women’s game. Four programs– South Carolina, Iowa, Iowa State and UConn- all averaged better than 10,000 in home attendance. ESPN said its March Madness coverage has the most viewers since 2009 and the title game between Iowa and LSU had a record 9.9 million viewers tuning in.
“There couldn’t be a better time do this,’ Miller said.
The game followed Iowa’s exhibition game called Crossover at Kinnick Stadium where an NCAA single game record 55,646 fans showed up to watch the Hawkeyes play DePaul in the first women’s game played in an outdoor football stadium.
It won’t be the last showcase for the game. Thursday, Iowa, with pre-season Player of the Year Caitlin Clark, play Final Four participant Virginia Tech at the NBA arena in Charlotte.
Whispers about thus game reverberated throughout college basketball all summer before the official announcement. “It gave me chills to think were a part of something legendary and something so new,” Notre Dame forward Maddy Westbeld said. “
No one knew what kind of team Staley would have this season. Most of the pre-season hype has gone to LSU, Iowa and UConn.
They found out quickly.
Staley, an Olympic guard who produced generational post players like A’jah Wilson and Boston, unleased her latest creation when 6-7 center Kamilla Cardoso. Caruso, a one-time transfer from Syracuse, contributed last season but is ready for her star turn now. She overwhelmed the smaller Irish with 20 points and 15 rebounds.
Milaysia Fulwiley, a generational freshman point guard from Columbia, S.C. who was on Staley’s radar in seventh grade, also had a breakout game with 17 points, six assists and six steals, including one moment where she drove through three players on Notre Dame’s defense, putting the ball behind her back and scoring on a flip shot to finish a spectacular coast to coast play that even caught Magic Johnson’s attention.
Johnson tweeted out it was the best play he had seen in all of basketball including the pros and LeBron.
South Carolina women’s basketball posted a clip of the play along with the line, “The Eiffel Tower is shaking.”
“It was my favorite move in high school, and I just did it That move made everyone notice,” Fulwiley said. “I hope they keep watching.”
Hannah Hidalgo, the MVP of the McDonald’s women’s game, led Notre Dame with 31 points.
But the Irish were no match for South Carolina, which has size and the quickest team in women’s basketball. This is the second time in less than a week where the Gamecocks have scored 100 points. Earlier they blew past Rutgers, 100-55, in an exhibition. The Gamecocks outscored the Irish by an astonishing 7-22 in the paint and had a 30-10 advantage in fast-break points.
“I thought we started off the way we wanted,” Ivy said. “This team was ready, but in the second quarter, felt like South Carolina’s pressure and the way they got the ball to Cardoso, they were just clicking on all cylinders. Hats off to them. I thought they played fantastic.”
South Carolina has quickly become must see TV in the SEC, especially in the SEC after defending national champion LSU lost to Colorado,92-78 in their opener. And Staley will challenge her team again with non-league games against Maryland, Utah, North Carolina and UConn in addition to two games against Tennessee. And a road game against LSU in the SEC.
“I feel like we’re a blank canvas,” said Staley, who posed in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre earlier in the week. “But I really think the chemistry on this team is special.”
