WATCH: Staley, Players Learning from Last Year’s Loss at UConn

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO)– When Dawn Staley and the second-ranked Gamecocks face top-ranked UConn Monday night at Colonial Life Arena, Carolina will be ready for round two.

“We weren’t ready last year,” said USC Guard Khadijah Sessions. “But we’re going to be ready on Monday.”

On February 9, 2015, top-ranked USC fell to the second-ranked Huskies, 87-62 in Stoors, Connecticut. It was a game which featured Kaleena Mosqueda Lewis, who led the Huskies with 23 points. (Fortunately for USC, Mosqueda-Lewis has graduated.) That night, the Huskies used a 23-2 run to take a 16-point lead into the half.

USC had won a program-record 22 in a row before falling to UConn.

“There are some things you need to take from it (last year’s game),” said Dawn Staley. “You don’t harp on it to the point where our players are dejected about it.”

Playing a powerhouse team like UConn on the road is not easy, especially with no players on the roster having the experience of playing the Huskies.

“UConn was ready,” said Sessions. “UConn has been in those situations before, those 1 v. 2 mathchups, that type of environment. We haven’t seen that type of hype.”

But according to USC Forward A’ja Wilson, just going through the motions of playing in that road environment provided was an incredibly valuable experience.

“We all grew from last year,” said USC Forward A’ja Wilson. “We really did grow from that game, so I think it helps us out in the long run.”

Staley agrees with Wilson.

“We did somethings in that game that we need to correct, and I think over the course of this season, we’ve corrected some of those things,” said Staley.