Dawn Staley called a reporter's boss from press row to help him score a trip to the women's Final Four

• South Carolina coach Dawn Staley called a reporter's boss to help get him to the women's Final Four.
• After her Gamecocks punched their ticket, Staley told the AP journalist's boss to "get with it."

With one viral phone call, Dawn Staley helped a journalist score a trip to the 2022 women's Final Four.

After her top-seeded South Carolina Gamecocks bested the Creighton Bluejays to punch their ticket to the Final Four, the legendary head coach caught wind that a beat reporter who covers her team — the Associated Press' Pete Iacobelli — wasn't planning to make the trip to Minneapolis.

That didn't fly with Staley.

With the net hanging around her neck and a Final Four ballcap on her head, the WNBA great and Naismith Hall of Famer nabbed Iacobelli's phone from press row and called his boss. Then she lobbied hard for the writer to follow her team to Minnesota.

"You can't let him lead us here and then leave us!" Staley said into the phone. "Oscar, come on, get with it, man!"

Another reporter — The Greenville News' Cory Diaz — recorded a clip of conversation and posted it to Twitter. The video — which you can check out below — went viral, further bolstering Iacobelli's case:

—Cory Diaz (@CoryDiaz_TGN) March 28, 2022

More than 1,500 likes and 200 retweets later, Iacobelli shared the good news; the AP was sending him to the Final Four after all.

"I'm in and headed to the Final Four," he wrote on Twitter Monday evening. "A thank you to AP for approving the trip, to Dawn for her wonderful spontaneity, and to Cory for putting it out there."

—Pete Iacobelli (@PIacobelli_AP) March 28, 2022

The Final Four begins Friday at Minneapolis' Target Center, where Staley and her Gamecocks will face the winner of the Michigan-Louisville Elite Eight matchup. Should South Carolina win, it will head to Sunday's national championship game with a chance to win the program's second title in five years.