Dawn Staley’s curious explanation after suspending | Sports News

Dawn Staley remained tight-lipped when pressed in regards to the sudden suspension of Maddy McDaniel following South Carolina’s dominant win.

The No. 2 Gamecocks issued a terse 12-word assertion confirming the sophomore guard would miss Tuesday’s matchup towards Clemson.

Without her, the group cruised to a 65-37 triumph. Joyce Edwards paced the squad with 18 factors and eight rebounds, whereas Madina Okot contributed 12 factors and 12 rebounds.

However, McDaniel’s absence and this system’s sparse explanation forged a shadow over the victory regardless of South Carolina bettering to 3-0, with supporters expressing confusion throughout social media.

“Maddy McDaniel will not be at tonight’s game. She has been suspended,” this system introduced on X, sparking bewildered responses from followers.

Expectations that head coach Staley would offer readability during her postgame press convention went unfulfilled. She opted to keep the matter non-public.

“I doubt it,” she responded when requested whether or not McDaniel can be obtainable for Saturday’s conflict with No. 8 LSU.

Pressed on when the guard may rejoin the rotation, Staley stated, “That’s on her. We’ll evaluate it every day,” earlier than making clear she would not disclose additional particulars about McDaniel’s suspension.

McDaniel appeared in 30 video games as a freshman, averaging 3.1 factors per contest, and expectations had been high that she would progress during her sophomore marketing campaign. However, she was sidelined by an harm previous to her suspension, lacking the win over Bowling Green resulting from a knee downside.

The determination to bench McDaniel leaves the Gamecocks at a drawback. Chloe Kitts, the present MVP of the SEC match, is out with a torn ACL. Ashlyn Watkins can also be on the bench for a similar motive, having sustained an ACL harm in January.

Despite the group’s absences and offensive struggles, there have been a number of elements of their efficiency that happy Coach Staley, particularly their means to stop Clemson from scoring a discipline aim within the fourth quarter.

“I mean, we got a good group that was disciplined, right? Sometimes you go an entire game and one group is more linked and connected. And that group was out there, I mean, very predictable, and they were just, they would link them together,” Staley commented.

“And I think what we failed to realize is that Clemson was basically taking the air out of the ball by fluffing it to about eight seconds left on the shot clock. And then they run their short shot clock options, and they did that all game long.

“Our offense is what pressured us to must play protection for a long time as a result of we took ill-advised pictures, fast pictures, no reversals, and if you are going to play that method, you are going to must play protection for a very long time, and that is what occurred to us tonight.”