Southern players admire Dawn Staley, now play her in NCAA Tournament Ella Sather, Special to USA TODAYSat, March 21, 2026 at 10:04 AM UTC 0 COLUMBIA S.C. — Southern University guard Mykayla Cunningham's mom, Vesa, loves to watch Dawn Staley coach. Cunningham grew up knowing that. On Saturday, Vesa Cunningham's daughter is playing against Staley and the topseeded South Carolina Gamecocks in the first round of the Women's NCAA Tournament. Will mom have split loyalties? "She might," Mykayla Cunningham said. No.
Southern players admire Dawn Staley, now play her in NCAA Tournament
Ella Sather, Special to USA TODAYSat, March 21, 2026 at 10:04 AM UTC
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COLUMBIA S.C. — Southern University guard Mykayla Cunningham's mom, Vesa, loves to watch Dawn Staley coach. Cunningham grew up knowing that.
On Saturday, Vesa Cunningham's daughter is playing against Staley and the top-seeded South Carolina Gamecocks in the first round of the Women's NCAA Tournament.
Will mom have split loyalties?
"She might," Mykayla Cunningham said.
No. 16 seed Southern is one of two HBCUs to make the Women's NCAA Tournament this year, a feat the Jaguars have achieved in back-to-back seasons. Staley regularly schedules games with HBCUs to help promote their programs. This season, the Gamecocks played at Coppin State.
"She's done a lot of things for the South Carolina program, (for) Black women in general, (for) younger kids looking up to her that play basketball," Southern sophomore forward DeMya Porter said of Staley. "I just love her."
Ahead of Southern's First Four matchup against Samford, Staley spoke to both teams, giving them words of encouragement and life advice. The Jaguars won, setting up a matchup with Staley on the opposing sideline.
Porter will need to separate her love and appreciation for Staley from the fight on the court.
"I'm playing with my team, and we have to go out and play our best," Porter said. "So we still have to put all that aside, go out and show what we can do."
Porter won't be the only Southern player setting aside her feelings about Staley.
In middle school, senior guard D'Shantae Edwards played basketball at the Hank Gathers Recreation Center in Philadelphia, Staley's childhood court. Staley sometimes stopped in.
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"She used to give us words of encouragement and you can see that as a coach," Edwards said. "When she's coaching on the court, she lets her players play, try to figure it out, and then she steps in and she does what she does best."
In a letter that Southern senior guard Jaylia Reed wrote to her future self in Ms. West's sixth grade class at Hot Springs Junior Academy, she declared "One day I'll play for the Gamecocks."
"But now I'm playing against them, so that's cool, too," Reed said.
This is actually the second time Reed will meet Staley and the Gamecocks on a college court. While at Mississippi Valley in 2024, she played South Carolina, which won the national championship that season.
After Southern's First Four win, Staley surprised the players with samples of Louis Vuitton Imagination – a gift that came in response to many of the players asking her what perfume she was wearing when she spoke to them the day before.
"She walked in the meeting room, the kids blew up," Southern assistant coach Jeremy Bonin said of Staley coming to Southern's hotel. "They loved it. So there was definitely some motivation for us to try to win that game (Thursday), which we were lucky enough to do."
Bonin used a connection with South Carolina's director of operations for women's basketball, Ariana Moore, to set up the meeting with Staley.
"We are just hopeful and grateful that we can show up and play our best basketball," Bonin said. "We will not forget this season.
"And we are just going to try and give Dawn Staley hell for 40 minutes."
Peter Bartlett, Alyssia Hamilton and Grant Turnage contributed to this story. Ella Sather, Bartlett, Hamilton and Turnage are students in the University of Georgia's Carmical Sports Media Institute.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dawn Staley has admirers in South Carolina's opponent: Southern
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Published: March 21, 2026 at 01:27PM on Source: RED MAG
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