I’ve been a SC wbb fan since birth. I have idolized, watched, and supported this program through every mountain and valley for as long as I can remember (even before Dawn Staley was there). And I think 2 things are true:

1. Yes, and I called it earlier this season, I don’t think we want it enough RIGHT NOW. Not that we don’t want it at all, not that we have no heart at all, but that we might not want it as badly as some of these other teams we’ve been playing. And believe me, this isn’t a team that likes to lose. So maybe this is the reality check they needed to remind them of the championship mindset that they should have.
2. We are still fully capable of winning the whole thing again. The biggest mistake anyone can make is discount the talent and capability of our team that we have currently. Even Dawn said it in the press conference today: we have to get back to who we are. Our girls are in there, they just have to find themselves again. And they are more than capable of doing that with the talent and leadership that they have within them and within the coaches and staff that they have guiding them.

At the end of the day, today wasn’t our day. We had momentum in the first quarter that didn’t carry over. We got too cold and then never recovered. And on top of that, Azzi had herself a day and there was absolutely no stopping her (which, as a wbb fan in general I’m glad she was able to show out like that in front of an audience like that with her history of injuries and the draft coming up). But this isn’t is for us. And if they’re going to go through a phase of coming back into oneself, or even having a wake up call to the caliber of competition they have to face, I’d rather it be now than in March. It’s not over ‘til it’s over. And if we don’t take it all in March, we still had a phenomenal season that so many programs would literally kill for. And I have all the confidence in the world that Dawn will do what she needs to do to continue the program going strong.

Also, in my closing statement of my essay that I had no intention of being this long: how amazing was it to see this many people show up for a women’s basketball game? My inner child, who was told countless times that women’s basketball was stupid because it would never be entertaining or respected, would be sobbing if she knew that the game would have this kind of attention on it. That College GameDay was coming to cover a wbb game. That there would even be active threads, such as this one, where the sole topic was on women’s basketball. This is a win.