Her teams have proved themselves over and over, and the players have enough comfort together to play like “shorthand writing.”
Staley, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and Hall of Famer as a player, had coached at Temple, in her hometown, Philadelphia, for eight years, but the team couldn’t get beyond the first weekend of the N.C.A.A. tournament.
So when Staley took over as coach of South Carolina’s women’s basketball team in 2008, she had one goal on her mind: “I wanted to win,” Staley said Saturday.