COLUMBIA — South Carolina women’s basketball’s schedule may appear a bit lighter for the 2025-26 season but that isn’t because of the Gamecocks’ seeding in the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
Last March, coach Dawn Staley suggested she might change her approach when crafting her schedule after South Carolina wasn’t the No. 1 overall seed for the first time in three years.
“It wasn’t (because of what) I said,” Staley said Sept. 22. “Scheduling is hard, people don’t want to play us. Even having lost what we lost, it’s really a hard thing.”
The Gamecocks will face seven power 5 schools in 15 non-conference games on the 2025-26 schedule. One of the seven is Clemson, which the program has played 69 times since 1976 and has not lost to since 2009. Last year, the Gamecocks faced nine power 5 teams in 14 non-conference games.
At the time of the selection show, South Carolina led the nation with 16 Quad 1 wins but UCLA was the No. 1 overall seed. The Bruins beat the Gamecocks in California last November but Staley’s point was that her team shouldn’t be punished for losing to a great team.
“I will say this, we’re going to make adjustments to our schedule in the future if the standard is the standard. If that’s the standard, we can play any schedule and get the No. 1 seed,” Staley said March 16, stating that South Carolina “manufactured a schedule” that should produce the overall No. 1 seed.
The Gamecocks open the season against Grand Canyon on Nov. 3 and play Southern Cal on the road Nov. 15 before a tournament where they’ll face Duke then either UCLA or Texas.
Four of those five teams are expected to be ranked at the time of the game. Last year Staley faced five ranked opponents before SEC play then a sixth with UConn in February. The Huskies beat South Carolina in the national championship game.
The Big East increased the number of conference games to 20 beginning in 2025-26 and UConn already had contracts with Tennessee and Notre Dame through this season. The contract with South Carolina expired after 2024-25.
The Gamecocks’ other non-conference games are Bowling Green, Clemson, Winthrop, Queens, Louisville, NC Central, Penn State, USF, Florida Gulf Coast, Providence and Coppin State.
When Staley had a similar issue scheduling games last year, she agreed to a home-and-home series with Coppin State, a historically Black college and university in Maryland. Though high major schools don’t typically travel to play mid-major schools on the road, the Gamecocks will on Jan. 18.
NC Central is also an HBCU but that game is new to this season’s schedule and will be played in Colonial Life Arena.
“Instead of the big competitive games, we’ve added some HBCUs just to lift up every aspect of our sport,” Staley said. “Not every team will go and play an HBCU on their home court and we feel like it’s a great game, competition and coaching. If we can lift because we play the game and get some notiety to the HBCUs, then we’ll do that.
“I hope the committee takes that into consideration.”