South Carolina women’s basketball: Breaking down next season’s schedule
It’s never too early to start looking at next season, beginning with the schedule. Here’s what we know so far.
The season begins on November 3. First, some clarification: “This season” refers to 2024-25, “next season” refers to 2025-26, and “last season” was 2023-24.
Dawn Staley has a lot of work to do with the nonconference schedule. As many as eight of the 14 games still must be scheduled.
After South Carolina only got the second overall seed in the NCAA tournament, Staley talked about changing her scheduling strategy. I don’t expect any drastic changes next season, though.
Staley likes a tough schedule to challenge her team. She likes to play teams with different styles and teams from different levels. The idea is to make sure the Gamecocks have already seen everything by the time they reach the NCAA tournament.
As always, except when there is a global pandemic, South Carolina plays Clemson. This season, they meet in Columbia.
South Carolina plays Southern Cal in Los Angeles on November 15. That is the first game of a two-game series, with the teams playing in Greenville in 2026.
South Carolina will play three games in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving. The round-robin Players Era Championship also includes Duke, UCLA, and Texas. The event is an NIL opportunity for the players, promising “at least $1 million in NIL activities.”
About that asterisk – this game between South Carolina and Texas is expected to be a nonconference game (I only hesitate because I’ve seen crazier things happen).
South Carolina also owes USF a home game in return for this season’s game in Columbia. That brings us to six known games.
There should be an SEC-ACC Challenge game at an ACC opponent. ESPN tries to match teams with similar expectations. With Duke and South Carolina already scheduled to play, North Carolina and NC State look like logical options. (I would have included Notre Dame before almost the entire team transferred.)
South Carolina has become fond of one-off neutral-site games. Everyone was impressed by the Ally Tip-Off game against NC State in Charlotte this season, and the impression I got was that the Gamecocks would be eager to return.
South Carolina has also appeared in a Hall of Fame Series game in the last two seasons (against Utah in Connecticut and then Michigan in Las Vegas).
Turning to some other potential games, it is believed that Bowling Green still owes South Carolina a home game in return for the Gamecocks’ visit to former assistant coach Fred Chmiel in 2023.
There is often a Hall of Fame Series game in Phoenix. This season, it was at the Footprint Center, the site of next season’s Final Four, and included Grand Canyon, now led by former South Carolina assistant Winston Gandy. It almost seems too obvious.
Interestingly, the longstanding series with UConn is not guaranteed to continue. The home-and-home series technically expired after last season. This season’s game in Columbia was a makeup for the postponed 2022 game.
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In the past, the programs have usually announced an extension before the offseason. Both Dawn Staley and Geno Auriemma have always talked about how much they like the game for the exposure, but there is some scuttlebutt that both coaches are tired of interrupting conference play for the game.
UConn already has Tennessee on the schedule for next season and may not see a need for two SEC games in February like it had this season. Since 2015, South Carolina has sacrificed one of its open dates to play UConn. With Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC now, it’s asking a lot to give up that open date, and it puts the Gamecocks at a disadvantage compared to the teams with two open dates.
(Here’s the crazy thing I mentioned – What if Staley and Vic Schaefer agree to make their November game in Las Vegas a conference game? Then, they have another open date during the conference season. I doubt the SEC would agree to it, but I’m not opposed to the idea.)
There should also be some of the usual guarantee games. Look for an in-state opponent, an HBCU that is favored to win its conference, and somebody with a unique style of play. Staley also usually tries to schedule a mid-tier opponent, the type that projects as an eight or nine seed in the tournament.
South Carolina will play 16 SEC games. While a lot of us in the media have pushed for women to go to an 18-game schedule like the men have, the coaches seem to have no interest in it.
The same scheduling format remains, so South Carolina will play 14 of the other teams once and one team home-and-home.
We don’t know which team South Carolina will play twice, except that it won’t be Texas. (There’s an asterisk there; more on that later.) We also don’t know where South Carolina and Texas will play their only game.
Expect road games at Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Kentucky, LSU, Auburn, Florida, and Arkansas. Home opponents should include Vanderbilt, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Missouri, and Alabama.
The SEC Tournament runs from March 4 to 8 in Greenville, SC.
The first round of the NCAA Tournament begins on March 20, with the Sweet 16 on March 27 and the Final Four on April 3 and 5.
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