South Carolina's Dawn Staley makes admission after loss to UCLA

For the first time in program history, the UCLA Bruins have won the women's NCAA Tournament. 

Cori Close's team took down Dawn Staley's South Carolina Gamecocks in a game that was way more lopsided than the final 79-51 score. 

The Bruins held South Carolina to just 30 points through the first three quarters in their second consecutive blowout loss in the championship game for the program.

That's why Staley opened up on the mounting pressure everybody feels right now, especially after such a disappointing outing.

Dawn Staley admits the Gamecocks got "smacked" by UCLA

“We do feel the pressure,” Staley said, per Meghan L. Hall of USA Today. “How long you sustain that? We don’t know … to get here is hard, and to win here is harder … obviously we got smacked today and gotta figure out we smack back to put ourselves in a position to lift a trophy.”

This was the second year in a row the Gamecocks failed to score at least 60 points in the championship game, and their second loss by 23-plus points with the trophy on the line.

Staley would've become just the fourth coach in women's basketball history to win at least four championships, joining UConn's Geno Auriemma, LSU's Kim Mulkey and Tennessee's Pat Summit.

It was certainly a heartbreaking end to the season for a team that had just dominated the reigning champions.

That said, they've reached the Final Four eight times in Staley's 17-year tenure there and six consecutive times from 2021 to 2026, so as much as she may feel the pressure to win again, she's got history on her side and the benefit of the doubt.