BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said Thursday she felt her team's three losses this season were needed to help remind her players how hard it is to win games.
Those lessons learned have gotten the No. 1 seed Gamecocks back to the Sweet 16, where they face Maryland on Friday in their quest to repeat as national champions.
"I think the biggest thing in winning the championship and then coming back is the players seem to forget how hard it was," Staley said during a news conference. "We won. We were undefeated. You can kind of get drunk off that success and think, 'Oh, we can do it again.' It's much harder than they could have ever imagined. We had to work through not playing our best basketball early and not playing to the standard that we were used to.
"Every single one of our losses came at a time when we needed it, and we came out better because of it. I hope it's enough to get us to the finish line."
South Carolina went 38-0 in 2023-24 and returned many of the players off that team, starting the season as preseason No. 1. The first loss came on the road to UCLA 77-62 in November, ending the Gamecocks' overall 43 game-winning streak. Then came losses to Texas and UConn in February. The 87-58 loss to the Huskies was particularly painful, as South Carolina had its 71-game home winning streak broken and was not competitive for most of the game.
"The losses that we took definitely taught us a lot of lessons," South Carolina guard Raven Johnson said. "We were very hard on ourselves. It felt unreal that we lost because we had that perfect season last season. Sometimes you need that loss to get you back to knowing what you need to work on. We were very complacent, like, we could just do another perfect season, but it's not like that all the time."
Johnson added of the UConn loss: "We thought they were a team we could walk over at any given time, and it's not like that this year. We're definitely using that game for March Madness. We need to keep our foot on the gas."
Since the UConn loss, South Carolina rebounded to win the SEC tournament championship in a blowout over Texas, avenging one of the losses from earlier in the season. Yet UCLA was chosen as the No. 1 overall seed over the Gamecocks, something Staley continues to take issue with because of the challenging nonconference schedule they played.
In addition to playing UCLA and UConn, South Carolina played NCAA tournament teams Michigan, NC State, Iowa State, Duke, TCU and USF during nonconference play.
During the NCAA tournament selection show, Staley questioned why she should continue to schedule a challenging nonconference schedule if it was not going to be rewarded. Though she said Thursday that South Carolina will continue to play a challenging nonconference schedule, she still had questions for the committee.
"If we're unable to get a No. 1 seed because we lost in a head-to-head, I mean, would you play that? Would you think about playing UCLA if they're going to use that against us?" Staley said. "We still want to elevate our sport in the way that it should be and play these games.
"The competitor in me, we're going to play the games. But I do need the committee to look at it from our vantage point, which is, you're telling me is: We lose three games. To play the schedule that we play, we can't ever be considered for the No. 1 overall seed? That's what I want them to think about. Not necessarily diminishing the overall No. 1 seed because UCLA has had a great year.
"It's a topic of conversation. What I say doesn't matter because I'm not a decision-maker, but I do need the decision-makers to see another side of it."