South Carolina women’s basketball team in town

The defending champs are in Southwest Florida.

The South Carolina women’s basketball team brought its dominance to the Fort Myers tip-off.

Fans came from all over to see the Gamecocks face number 15 Iowa State on Thanksgiving,
including some local champions on the hardwood.

South Carolina brought its dominance on the court to Southwest Florida, getting back in the win column after its 43 game winning streak was snapped.

Under the leadership of head coach Dawn Staley, the Gamecocks have become the standard in women’s college basketball.

That’s why the ECS girls basketball team had to see the Gamecocks in action.

“We’re striving for perfection in practice, and we’re hoping to do that, and South Carolina is pretty close to that,” said Maddie Oberski, ECS guard.

The Sentinels were recognized during the thrid quarter for its state championship win.

For ECS head coach Dwayne Donnel, it was important to bring his team out on Thanksgiving, and witness greatness in person.

“All of them are aspiring to be in the big time, so they need to see what it looks like so they won’t be having these dreams that are not really dreams and understand that they got a lot of work to do to play at this level,” Donnel said.

Staley and her team value the opportunity to serve as the example for teams like ECS.

“Our responsibility is to show them, be the example of how you need to take care of our game. I mean we didn’t score a whole whole lot of points. There wasn’t a lot of flash with what we were doing. It was fundamental basketball,” Staley said.

Wise words from the championship winning coach.

The Gamecocks beat Iowa State 76-36 and advance to Saturday night’s championship game
at FSW.