ALBANY, N.Y. — Dawn Staley turned around to find her assistant coaches. As the final seconds of South Carolina women’s basketball’s 70-58 Elite Eight win over Oregon State ticked away and the agenda transitioned from coaching basketball to celebrating it, those were the first people Staley reached for.

It ended up being a group embrace between the legendary head coach and Lisa Boyer, Jolette Law, Winston Gandy and Khadijah Sessions.

One head coach who cut down her 15th net minutes later, and a mixture of team architects befitting of their players. Boyer and Law, the two long-time assistants who have felt these feelings and basked in these joys with Staley, along with Sessions and Gandy, both in their first seasons in Columbia.

"Just proud of our team, and for them believing in themselves,” Staley said. “They created a certain level of chemistry and culture, and they stuck with it, and then they allowed us to coach them. They trusted us to coach them, even when it didn't feel good to them personally at different times of the season.”

South Carolina (36-0) is heading to its fourth straight Final Four and sixth in program history, an achievement so normal for this program’s dynasty and yet wholly worth acknowledging regardless of what happens next weekend in Cleveland.

Four years in a row reaching the final destination. It is something only six other programs have ever done, and a notion this one never would have conceived of a decade ago. Just like their coaching staff, this group was a collection of contrasting stories. The returning players, working towards a goal born out of the bitter disappointment of a four-point loss in the Final Four last year.

Chloe Kitts, Ashlyn Watkins, Sania Feagin, Kamilla Cardoso, Bree Hall and Raven Johnson. One year ago today they trudged off the court in Dallas experiencing the lowest of lows, and spent all off-season hearing about how other players carried them even that far.

This was — and still is — their story, taking the torch from the most successful recruiting class in program history and making the script their own.

Watkins was practically on rocket fuel all afternoon, seemingly covering every speck of hardwood on the floor and making sure all Oregon State challengers knew she was there. Eight points, 14 rebounds and four vicious blocks later, she is getting another chance to represent her hometown in a Final Four. Cardoso nearly popped up with another double-double, 12 points and nine boards to be precise.

And her old AAU teammate Johnson hit perhaps the two biggest shots of the weekend, a dagger 3-pointer against Indiana on Friday and a corner triple Sunday which opened the floodgates on a game-changing 12-0 run.

“I think it feels different this year,” Johnson said. “I know going from last year we made it to the Final Four and we lost. I don’t want to feel that feeling again. We know it’s going to get harder when we get there. We know this is a business trip, this is not to have fun.”

The new players had just as much to do with it. Te-Hina Paopao picked up her life and moved 3,000 miles from Eugene to Columbia for exactly this day. When you grab up a pen and sign a letter of intent to join South Carolina, you are doing it with the idea of playing in a Final Four.

It has become the barometer for success, the minimum expectation for every season but also the joy of the grind, the dangling carrot for everyone who pursues playing in Columbia.

“It’s not real,” Paopao said. “It’s so surreal. The feeling hasn’t hit yet, but man I’m just so excited.”

Tessa Johnson was there two years ago when South Carolina climbed the mountain. It was a Final Four in Minneapolis, and the Albertville, Minn. native was in the stands watching when the Gamecocks beat UConn to secure their second National Championship.

It has only been 24 months, but she made sure South Carolina would be in another Final Four with a dozen second half points and seven of the final nine, putting the team on her back with a seemingly impossible poise for a true freshman.

“I think what makes it the most special is the team that we are,” Johnson said. “We are so close, we love each other so much, so I think that’s the most special. I’m happy that I’m doing it with this team.”

And MiLaysia Fulwiley, hometown hero, fan favorite and freshman who launched this entire season into orbit with her captivating Paris performance, is living the ultimate dream.

She grew up quite literally in the shadows of this program’s ascent. Observing those teams, falling in love with it, coming into her own as a superstar while Tiffany Mitchell, A’ja Wilson and Aliyah Boston were doing the same.

Can there be more of a thrill for a college athlete than playing at the highest level and becoming a national sensation in front of everyone who grew up watching you? Fulwiley has gotten a taste of it, and Hall will get it next weekend when the Dayton, Ohio native takes the floor for a Final Four in Cleveland.

Whatever happens in the Final Four, this is a year of dreams. Goals, visions and ideas for so many associated with the program will culminate here. Four new players and two assistant coaches can say forever they went to a Final Four their first year, that the dominos fell in place immediately.

Those chards of net, those Final Four commemorative T-shirts the entire team wore in a joyous post-game locker room and the “2024” stitching on a Final Four banner ticketed for Colonial Life Arena’s rafters next fall will hang forever whether the Gamecocks win or lose by 100 Friday.

This is a Final Four team. Again.

“I'm just super proud that we can play in front of her hometown,” Fulwiley said about Hall. “The atmosphere is going to be great and wonderful because I play in my hometown all the time. I’m just excited everybody is getting to experience all of these great things, because that’s what basketball does for you. It brings you great things.”

“Great things” have become the norm.

You come to South Carolina, your dreams come true.

It’s what you do.

You come to South Carolina, you go to Final Fours.

It’s what you do.

*****************************************************************************

Want 2 months free on your Rivals subscription? Refer a friend and they'll get 50% off their first year while you get 2 months free, and the best part? You can do it as many times as you want. Just use your custom referral link on your subscriptions page (linked above).