South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley isn’t sweating her team’s most recent game being a double-digit loss.
In fact, she thinks being beaten — Texas topped Staley’s squad 78-61 in the Southeastern Conference tournament title game on March 8 in Greenville, South Carolina — might be a blessing in disguise for the Gamecocks (31-3) heading into the NCAA Division I tournament, allowing them to refocus.
“Our team knows we didn’t play our best basketball — not nearly what we’re capable of doing,” Staley said after the loss to the Longhorns, who sprinted to a 14-0 lead on their way to keeping SEC regular-season champion South Carolina from what would have been the program’s fourth straight league tournament title and 10th in the past 12 seasons.
“But I told them that the last time we lost in this situation, we won a national championship,” Staley added. “So you’ve got to think about that. It might be the very thing this team needs.”
The Gamecocks (31-3) last lost the SEC final in 2022 to Kentucky, but then they went on to beat the University of Connecticut 64-49 for the second of Staley’s three national championships since taking over at South Carolina ahead of the 2008-09 season.
South Carolina enters this year’s tournament as a regional No. 1 seed for the sixth straight time. Reigning national champion UConn (34-0) — seeking a record-extending 13th NCAA title overall — UCLA (31-1) and Texas (31-3) are the other regional No. 1 seeds.
The Gamecocks have reached the Final Four the past five times the NCAA tourney was held (March Madness was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), a span in which they made the national championship game three times (2022, 2024, 2025) and cut down the nets twice during that span. Those 2022 and 2024 titles joined the program’s breakthrough banner from 2017.
And for the 11th consecutive tournament, the Gamecocks are an NCAA host for the first two rounds.
Saturday’s 1 p.m. first-round matchup at Columbia’s Colonial Life Arena, which will be televised by ABC, is against the No. 16 seed that survived Thursday night’s First Four game on the same court. Southern University (20-13), the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament champion from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, beat Southern Conference champion Samford 65-53 to earn the chance to face the Gamecocks.
Saturday’s other first-round game at Colonial Life Arena is between eighth-seeded Clemson (21-11) and ninth-seeded Southern California (17-13), and the second-round matchup in Columbia is set for Monday. The winner of that game will head to Sacramento, California, for the Sweet 16 as part of Regional 4.
Two of South Carolina’s three losses this season have come to Texas, which is led by junior forward Madison Booker — a first-team selection when AP All-America honors were announced Wednesday — and has proven to be a difficult matchup. South Carolina is 1-2 this season against coach Vic Schaefer’s Longhorns, who beat the Gamecocks 66-64 to win the Players Era Championship tournament on Nov. 27 in Las Vegas but lost an SEC regular-season meeting 68-65 on Jan. 15 in Columbia.
The teams are on opposite sides of the NCAA bracket, meaning if they meet for a fourth time, it would come in the national championship game on April 5 in Phoenix — and add to what has become a budding rivalry since Texas left the Big 12 to join the SEC in 2024. Last season, they did meet four times, with South Carolina going 3-1 as the teams split a pair of regular-season meetings but the Gamecocks rolled in both the SEC title game and a national semifinal at the Final Four in Tampa, Florida.
Staley has the firepower to win another national title despite losing four starters from last year’s runner-up team. Three of those players had completed their eligibility, and 2025 SEC tournament MVP Chloe Kitts sustained a preseason knee injury that ended her 2025-26 campaign before it began.
The Gamecocks also lost key reserve MiLaysia Fulwiley when she transferred to LSU, but returning starter Joyce Edwards has stepped up her game this season to average 19.6 points and 6.3 rebounds per game on her way to All-America second-team recognition, and the Gamecocks feature a strong backcourt led by Raven Johnson (an All-America third-team pick) and Tessa Johnson. They’ve also gotten big contributions from Ta’Niya Latson (who received All-America honorable mention) and Madina Okot.
The Gamecocks responded well to their first two losses this season — in addition to the Las Vegas loss to Texas, they fell 94-82 in overtime at Oklahoma on Jan. 22 — rattling off a 12-game winning streak in each case.
The big question now will be if they can regroup from the Texas loss and make a run at another national title.
“Things we usually make weren’t necessarily going in,” Edwards said after the SEC title game. “It just happens. We have other goals in mind — the national championship. This isn’t the end all, be all, so we’re just moving forward.”
If there was a big bright spot for the Gamecocks coming out of the SEC tournament, it was the improved play of 6-foot-7 Alicia Tournebize, a midseason addition from France. Tournebize’s height and wingspan could be a factor for South Carolina later in the tournament, allowing the 6-6 Okot more time to rest.
“If we could get Ali to play the way she did — she played inspired,” Staley said. “If she can give us that. She got seven rebounds on a great rebounding team like Texas and held her own defensively.
“We needed scoring. We know Ali can score the basketball. I thought she did a pretty good job. I think we should probably have gotten her the ball a little bit more in the block and let her go to work. But we made a step forward in our journey to win a national championship. Somebody like her will add to the depth that we need to make this run.”