South Carolina has found extra incentive going into the NCAA Women’s Tournament.
Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said she felt slighted by the selection committee’s decision to give South Carolina (30-3) the No. 2 overall seed.
What matters is where they end up on the season’s final weekend. But for now, the defending champion Gamecocks might be playing the disrespected card.
“Obviously, it’s disappointing. it really is,” Staley said of not getting the tournament’s top seed for the first time since the 2021 season. “I’d like to get some feedback on how they came to that conclusion.
“Because we put together, manufactured a scheduled that if done right, it should produce the overall No. 1 seed.”
South Carolina is behind only UCLA (30-2) in the seeding. The Bruins beat the Gamecocks 77-62 on Nov. 24 in Los Angeles.
Still, the Gamecocks have a favorable geographic route. Plus, they’re the No. 1 seed in the Birmingham 2 bracket.
To repeat, the Gamecocks won’t even have to leave the Southeast.
After opening at home for two games, the path would take them to Birmingham, Ala., where the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 rounds will be contested. The Women’s Final Four will be played in Tampa.
The Gamecocks begin against 16th-seeded Tennessee Tech (26-5) on Friday. The winner of a Utah-Indiana matchup (seeds 8 and 9) would be the second-round opponent.
“The draw is the draw,” Staley said. “We’re going to play each game like it’s our last. And, hopefully, that leads us to a place that, hopefully, everybody in this room wants us to be.”
Aside from the UCLA result, South Carolina’s other setbacks came against visiting UConn and at Texas. The Gamecocks lost to the Longhorns, 66-62, but they own two victories against Texas by an average of 18 points.
South Carolina was the regular-season co-champion with Texas in the Southeastern Conference, then topped the Longhorns in the SEC tournament final.
The Gamecocks have 12 victories against ranked opponents. That seemed to be a sticking point for Staley.
“Obviously, I think we did much more than probably any other overall No. 1 seed,” she said. “We outdid ourselves even from last year with the amount of quality wins that we had, but I guess that the committee was looking at something else.”
In the Big Ten tournament final, UCLA avenged its losses to Southern Cal by beating the Trojans.
In some ways, the Gamecocks might not look as dominating as they once did. South Carolina was unbeaten when entering the 2023 and 2024 tournaments.
The Nos. 2 and 3 seeds in the Birmingham 2 bracket are Atlantic Coast Conference rivals Duke and North Carolina, respectively. The Gamecocks beat visiting Duke 81-70 in the ACC/SEC Challenge in early December.
South Carolina’s seven-game winning streak includes two blowouts of Vanderbilt, which is No. 7 in the bracket.
In its portion of the Birmingham bracket, the Gamecocks are 4-0 against teams they’ve played this season.
Aiming for a third national title in four years, South Carolina is unpredictable for defending teams — relying on five different leading scorers in their past six games.
Staley insisted Sunday night that she must express her opinion, but she won’t harp on the seeding aspect to generate motivation.
“It’s hard enough to win a national championship,” she said. “We don’t need a chip on our shoulder.”
–Field Level Media
