SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Dawn Staley says her conversations with recruits have changed over the past few years, with finances becoming a top point of discussion, especially with players in the transfer portal.<\/p>\n
The South Carolina coach said Sunday that in the past, she would emphasize getting a college degree when she spoke to potential transfers and recruits.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much is it going to cost us? That\u2019s the conversation. You\u2019ve got to lead with that,\u201d Staley said as the Gamecocks prepare to face TCU in the Elite Eight of the women\u2019s NCAA Tournament. \u201cBecause you don\u2019t really want to waste your time. You either are going to have enough to pay players, or you don\u2019t. And you move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the name, likeness and image era, money is the main thing many players in the portal care about.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause although you can promise a young person this or that, if your budget says otherwise \u2014 I don\u2019t like to promise anything that isn\u2019t available to us,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to have to go out and get the money because you could be told no and then your back is against the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staley added that it may not be the first question she asks, but she has no choice but to bring it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t say I lead with that question, but I get to it fairly quickly,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter the pleasantries are done, you have to get to the question so you\u2019re not wasting your time and spinning your wheels on somebody that you can\u2019t afford.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gamecocks have three transfers on their roster, all of whom are seniors \u2014 Ta’Niya Latson, Madina Okot and Maryam Dauda.<\/p>\n
Even with money being the focus, Staley and her staff still believe it’s important that their players graduate. She said all but one of her players has earned a degree and she threatened to put social media pressure on the one who hasn’t.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always have a plan no matter how many credits you come in with, a plan to get you out on time,\u201d Staley said. \u201cAny time (the players) come on a visit, you get the transcript and then we send the transcript off to our admissions and all that, and they give us what they need. And that\u2019s part of the conversation. But all of our kids graduate, all of them but one in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gamecocks’ Elite Eight opponent, TCU, has relied on the transfer portal, adding several high-profile players over the last three years, including current stars Olivia Miles and Marta Suarez.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve built our program literally all through the portal, for you guys that haven\u2019t followed us,\u201d Horned Frogs coach Mark Campbell said. \u201cI think we\u2019ve had 18 portal players, six each year. And our program\u2019s come a long ways. There\u2019s a lot of negative you hear about the portal. I think there\u2019s a lot of positive too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Dawn Staley says her conversations with recruits have changed over the past few years,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[35129,87685,35019,33070,29195,29194,202,196,197,87686,942,82,84,83,9915],"class_list":["post-226372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-dawn-staley","tag-dawn-staley-recruiting-transfer-money-south-carolina","tag-madina-okot","tag-mark-campbell","tag-marta-suarez","tag-olivia-miles","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-product-40812-ap-south-carolina-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-south-carolina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}