Dawn Staley showed up to watch her former players. Then the Fever put on a show.

Six former South Carolina players were on the floor Sunday in Las Vegas. Their old coach was in the building. And the result was a 109-75 beatdown that felt less like a WNBA regular-season game and more like a family reunion with a scoreboard.

Dawn Staley rolled into Michelob ULTRA Arena to watch the Indiana Fever and Las Vegas Aces. The Fever had Aliyah Boston, Raven Johnson, Bree Hall and Tyasha Harris. The Aces countered with A’ja Wilson and Ta’Niya Latson. Six Gamecocks in total, though Hall didn’t play and Latson is still on a development contract.

That didn’t matter. After the Fever ran the Aces off the floor, Staley walked onto the court and shared a moment with her former players. The WNBA posted video of the hugfest, captioning it as a Gamecock reunion. It looked exactly like what it was. A proud coach checking in on her people.

Staley has that effect. The 56-year-old Hall of Famer took over South Carolina in 2008 and turned it into a dynasty. Three national titles. Eight Final Fours. Twenty-one WNBA draft picks, including 12 first-rounders. She produced a four-time MVP in Wilson and a multiple-time All-Star in Boston. This season, a school-record 12 Gamecocks made opening-day rosters across the league.

But what happened Sunday was bigger than trophies. You could see it in the way the players gravitated toward her. They might have hated her at times when she was yelling at them in practice. They probably rolled their eyes more than once. But that’s the thing about Staley. She pushes hard, and then she shows up. She was a six-time All-Star herself before retiring in 2006, so she knows the grind. She knows what it takes to stay in the league.

The Fever’s win was impressive on its own. Caitlin Clark (who didn’t play for South Carolina, in case that wasn’t clear) has this team looking dangerous. But the story afterward was Staley standing on the court, arms around former players, looking like a mom who just watched her kids do something good.

That’s the part that sticks. Not the final score. Not the standings. Just a coach and her players, catching up in the middle of a WNBA season.