South Carolina women’s basketball finished a two-game road trip to Florida before the holidays with a 105-43 win over Florida Gulf Coast.

Here is everything head coach Dawn Staley said after the win.

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Coach, what did you learn about your team in these two games?

That we’re getting better. We’re starting to just gel on both sides of the ball. We’ve gotten pretty good practices in, so that allows us to do that. You know now that we’re in between semesters, we can really get some work done. And the players are just scrap by in, scrap by in on both sides of the ball. And we’re just jelling. Just jelling. We just need time. Hopefully, we can just continue to stay connected defensively and share the ball offensively, and then everybody can be happy.”

Joyce Edwards has obviously had a big past few games. Just what has it been about her growth over these last games that’s allowed her to do this?

“I mean, she’s a layup maker. If you just make layups, your overall average will skyrocket. If you just make layups. That’s a small ones to the juniors. high schoolers, collegiates, to professionals. And she’s a layup maker. And very, very efficient, great pivoting around the basket, great uses of her body, strong, and works hard. Like it doesn’t just happen on game day, she works at it. And when you work at something, she’s the type that wants to see her work pay off in moments like game day.”

Adding serious production through the transfer portal, does that add even more emphasis and objectives, and importance to games like these, closer to semester break in terms of building chemistry and kind of getting into the flow of things on offense?

Yeah, I mean, especially when you add pieces that are integral parts of what you do. I mean, we’re going to rely on Ta’Niya [Latson] to be who who she is, you know, and we’re going to rely on Madina [Okot] to be who she is, and then, along the way, we’re going to ask people that haven’t played a role for us, that they have to play for us starting, Tessa [Johnson] is starting, right? And Joyce is starting, you know, other people have to play roles for us, that they haven’t to play. So it’s all new to us, and I do think, just any time, if you can get two days of practicing, if you can get just two days of practice, you can move the chain when it comes to the things that you need to really get better at.”

Florida Gulf Coast did not have consecutive baskets all game. You’ve had some great defensive teams, but is this a season where the best defense is your offense?

I mean, our offense is pretty good, just our transition offense is pretty good. Yes, for this team, you know, other teams really have defended. I don’t think other teams have probably scored as much just from each position on the floor. Everybody’s a scoring threat, especially in our starting five, so they’re just starting to play well together, and then they’re starting to play just super connected defensively. Like they can really see where, you know, we were deficient and now we are just kind of closing that gap of deficiency and playing well together.”

Coach, what are your thoughts on Raina Harmon’s team and what they did tonight?

“Yeah, I thought they got off to a great start. I think one, the crowd is great. Like, you can really build a team with this type of enthusiasm in it, you know, that come out to see them play. I mean, they were disrupted. We disrupted them, and we had to. Like, you saw this start of the game. We didn’t disrupt them. They got open shots. You know, they could have made it interesting. So is our job to just try to disrupt? And we did a really good job of that. And we had to prepare for that because we knew that if they got streaky and they got hot, they could make it interesting, especially getting the crowd involved.” “

Big game from Madina today. How would you describe her role going forward, and just how integral she’s going to be down the stretch in conference?

“I thought she got off to a slow start. It was a slow start. For one reason or another, but then, you know, we started the third quarter, I just thought, we need to play her long. She didn’t play much in the first half. So let’s play her along. Let’s see if we can just get some rhythm going with her, and I thought she did a great job making layups, right? You know, when you make layups, you can shoot a three off the backboard that it goes in, because it’s, you know, shots connect like that, but I thought she did a great job rebounding and a great job just defending, because we were switching everything. She had to keep guards in front of her, and I thought she did a great job of coming out after a slow start, playing much, much better.”

What is your relationship with Raina, and what is your message to her as a first-year head coach trying to build this thing?

“I mean, I don’t really know her too well, but I did tell her after the game, like, ‘I’m here to help.’ Like this, you know, there’s a lot of young women that are head coaching, first-year head coach, first-time head coaching. And it’s difficult moving 12 inches over. When you’re assistant coaching, and you move 12 inches over. It’s a lot that comes at you. You’re really not prepared until you actually have to go through it. You can have the best teacher, a mentor, but until you actually have to take on all the responsibility of making decisions. Like, you know, when I’m in my, I don’t know, 26th year, I don’t have to do that anymore. Like, there are people that we’re just so connected that there’s certain things I don’t have to worry about. She has to worry about every single thing. And she’s got to build a good staff, and she’s got to build, you know, just where she is as a first-time head coach, and it’ll come. It’ll be frustrating days. It’s normal, I still have frustrating days. It’s normal. It’s how you handle them, and I think it’s really important that her assistant coaches are really loyal and take some of that stuff off of her plate and be reliable.”

What’s it like for you all coming to a place like this, you know, seeing the crowd, you guys are must see anywhere you go. What’s it like coming to a place like this?

“Cool. Like, cool. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, you know, I know when I watched film, there are a lot of people in the stands. I didn’t know it was Christmas break. Like, it’s no students, but this community filled this gym up. They made it really loud in here. And I do think they had an appreciation for good basketball. And that’s when you know they’re watching and they’re informed, and it was super cool to be in this atmosphere, and I hope they continue to just support, you know, this university has been super successful. Karl [Smesko], we got a chance to see him in practice yesterday, has done a great job. He’s made this a really highly sought-after job. And that the success that he has, and Raina will have the same success.”

What made you want to take this Florida road trip? I mean, obviously, you don’t have to make these trips. People usually come to you, so?

No, no, they’ll come back. Home and homes. Like, we had a home and home with South Florida, and then they came to us last year. And then on our return, we just like to connect some games. And then we tried to play this game last year. We did at the beginning of the season. We needed a home opener, but they weren’t quite ready to play us, and then, you know, came back and, fortunately for us, we got a chance to come here. It’s great. Food’s been great, oh my God. Food’s been like, incredible. So it’s always good. Like, we like to play South Florida, Florida Gulf Coast because when it comes to tournament time, players that play a similar style, you know, we’ve already familiarized ourselves with that style of play, so it really helps us, you know, today, as well as in the future.”

Outside of obviously winning these past two games, what were you looking to get out of this Florida trip in the two-game stretch?

“Just connectivity, like, and just mental toughness and lock in. Because I think it’s hard for young people to lock in when they know there’s a break on the other side of it. And I thought they held on. Like they probably faked it to make it, but sometimes you have to do that. You have to do that. And I’m just happy. I’m happy for our players that come off the bench because they were really, really impactful. Like, the things that we’ve been trying to get them to do, they haven’t done it consistently, and they really consistently did it on this road trip.”