LaDazhia Williams was an unlikely hero of the 2023 NCAA national championship game, scoring 20 points for the title-winning LSU Lady Tigers. A year after being drafted No. 17 overall by the Indiana Fever, she’s yet to make her WNBA debut, but continues to play professional ball, this season for Gladiadoras de San Luis Potosí in Mexico’s Liga Mexicana de Baloncesto Profesional Femenil (LMBPF).
Out of all the places that you could play college ball, you picked South Carolina. I’m going through the list of the teams that recruited you out of high school, and there’s LSU, which you ended up playing for, Florida State, South Florida, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Tennessee. So why why the Gamecocks?
I just really liked Dawn Staley. My high school coach, she was a Black woman and, I just wanted that role model and that type of figure just to look up to as a coach [in college]. And A’ja Wilson was my teammate my freshman year, so I just wanted to learn and watch her and stuff. So it just felt like a great fit.
And what makes Coach Staley so special?
She’s just a parent away from home, really. She was constantly staying on me, always pushing me to do better. While I was there, she showed up for us every day, that…
