South Carolina women's basketball: Dawn Staley and Vic Schaefer resume their rivalry

For a five-year period, Dawn Staley and Vic Schaefer had the best rivalry in women’s basketball. After a four-year hiatus, that rivalry resumes on Sunday.

Staley has coached South Carolina since 2008, and Schaefer coached Mississippi State from 2012 to 2020. During that time, the rivalry between the Gamecocks and Bulldogs became the heart of the SEC.

The rivalry peaked when South Carolina beat Mississippi State for the 2017 national championship. But the heart of the rivalry was familiarity.

They combined to win every SEC regular season or tournament championship from 2015 to 2020. They played in four tournament finals and combined to finish first and second in the standings for five consecutive seasons. From 2016 to 2020, South Carolina and Mississippi State played ten times, and seven of those games directly determined a regular season, tournament, or national champion (with another indirectly deciding). 

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Part of the rivalry was its one-sidedness. Staley had a head start on Schaefer, and it showed. The national championship game was the Gamecocks’ eleventh consecutive win over the Bulldogs, a streak that began before Schaefer’s arrival. 

In 2018, in front of the largest crowd to ever see a basketball game in the state of Mississippi, the Bulldogs finally got a win. But the Gamecocks beat the Bulldogs in the tournament final, part of a trend that saw the Gamecocks go 5-0 against the Bulldogs in title games and Staley go 12-3 against Schaefer.

The other part of the rivalry was the coaches themselves. Staley is a black woman from North Philly. Schaefer is a white country boy from Texas. Staley is known for wearing expensive designer clothes on the sideline, while Scaefer’s trademark is coaching in shirtsleeves.

There has never been any public animosity between the two coaches, but they have acknowledged that they aren’t close. Instead, there is respect and competition.

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The rivalry seemed poised to continue. In the same way that the rivalry between Pat Summitt’s Tennessee and Geno Auriemma’s UConn had dominated the sport from roughly 1995 to 2010, Schaefer’s Bulldogs and Staley’s Gamecocks seemed like they might dominate for a decade or longer.

Then came the bombshell following the 2020 season. Just weeks after South Carolina swept the SEC titles and routed Mississippi State in the SEC tournament final, Schaefer left for Texas.

To Gamecock fans, it was the ultimate victory. Staley hadn’t just beaten Schaefer, she had chased him from the conference.

That version glosses over some of the facts. Namely, the significant raise the Longhorns were able to offer, along with better resources and a return home for the native Texan. Two other events added fuel to the fire.

When former Gamecock assistant coach Nikki McCray replaced Schaefer in Starkville, the Bulldogs immediately went from a hated rival to part of the extended family. That reframed the rivalry as one between coaches, not programs. 

Schaefer then led his first Texas team on a surprise Elite Eight run, where their opponent was South Carolina. Once again, Staley beat Schaefer in a tournament game. The win wasn’t surprising, but they held the Longhorns scoreless in the fourth quarter and added some insult to injury.

Since Schafer left for Texas, the SEC has only gotten stronger. LSU emerged as the Gamecocks’ top rival, yet South Carolina continues dominating the league and the nation. The Gamecocks have won two more national championships, plus six of the eight SEC regular season and tournament titles.

But Texas is stronger, too. The Longhorns are one of the favorites to make the Final Four and win the national championship. They have flip-flopped with the Gamecocks atop the NET rankings for the past several weeks. And, once again, Schaefer has the top contender to dethrone the Gamecocks in the SEC.

It’s too early in the conference season to know how this game will ultimately shape the SEC race – plus, the loser gets a redo in about a month when the teams meet in Austin. 

And, if history is any indication, again in the postseason in Greenville and maybe in Spokane or Birmingham or Tampa.

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