University of South Carolina Women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley proclaimed her support for transgender players in the sport.

Staley made her stance clear during a press conference Saturday as her Lady Gamecocks have progressed to the NCAA Final Tournament. There, Outkick‘s Dan Zaksheske asked her what she thought about transgender females joining women’s sports.

“D***, you got deep on me, didn’t you?” Staley responded and took a sip of her drink. “I’m of the opinion of, if you’re a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.”

Then, Staley responded to a question about transgender players in women’s college basketball specifically.

“That’s the question you want to ask, I’ll give you that. Yes, yes,” Staley said. “So now the barnstormer people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game, and I’m OK with that. I really am.” 

Staley was referring to Sunday’s game, which will determine the overall champion in women’s college basketball. The Lady Gamecocks will face off against the Lady Hawkeyes of the University of Iowa.

“As an SEC girl through and through, I vehemently say ‘Go Hawks,'” fellow NCAA athlete Riley Gaines responded on X.

“If you have to sip, think, stutter, you know you don’t agree! This is a horrible take by a woman with a big platform for women,” former Independence Community College coach Jason Brown wrote. “What a joke we have become! Women play women! Men play men! What was so wrong with that way? Why are these people so delusional? Lord help!”

“Wrong Answer,” author Shemeka Michelle wrote. “Let’s go Iowa!”

“We are truly lost when key figures in women’s sports are willing to see them destroyed,” talk show host Mark Davis wrote.

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This year, Staley was named the NCAA Coach of the Year. Meanwhile, the opposing team’s star player Caitlin Clark was named Player of the Year.

The Lady Gamecocks are ranked first in the SEC Conference after an undefeated season. Clark’s Lady Hawkeyes were ranked second in the Big Ten Conference and had a record of 15-3.