Dawn Staley expresses frustrations with South Carolina not being the NCAA Tournament's No. 1 overall seed

South Carolina women’s basketball is an NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed for the fifth year in a row. Had the 2019-2020 season not been cut short by Covid, the Gamecocks would’ve been a No. 1 six consecutive times.

However, for the 2024-2025 Big Dance, South Carolina is not the top overall seed. Instead, the UCLA Bruins own the top spot. The Texas Longhorns and the Southern Cal Trojans are the other No. 1 seeds with the Gamecocks and Bruins.

USC head coach Dawn Staley wasn’t happy with her team’s exclusion from the No. 1 overall spot. Speaking to ESPN from the University of South Carolina’s Selection Sunday watch party on Sunday night, Staley expressed some frustration.

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Said the Gamecock boss, “I’m gonna speak on it tonight and then it’s not gonna be a motivation for us moving forward…I’m a little bit surprised because we manufactured our schedule and put ourselves in position to be the No. 1 overall seed.” She continued, “I do think, if you do, you know, the blind test and you put our resumé against any other team in the field? I think you’ll pick us. That’s just plain and simple.”

Later in the evening, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee chair Derita Dawkins spoke directly about the committee’s view on South Carolina-UCLA. According to Dawkins, “One [mark against South Carolina and in favor of UCLA] was the head-to-head matchup.” UCLA won 77-62 in Los Angeles back in November. Dawkins continued, “The other was one of our criteria which is competitive in losses and South Carolina suffered a 29-point loss to UConn so those are the two key differences in those resumes.”

Able to anticipate what the committee’s reasoning might be, Staley laid out a few items from her team’s resume as a preemptive rebuttal. “We’ve got the most Quad 1 wins,” she explained. “If having more Quad 1 wins doesn’t supersede some of the hiccups that we had during the season, I don’t know what will.” Heading into Selection Sunday, South Carolina had 16 Quad 1 victories, the most in the country. UCLA had just 13. The Gamecocks also had the nation’s most Quad 1 + Quad 2 wins with 20. UCLA had 18.

Coach Staley wasn’t the only one surprised and disappointed by UCLA being in the top spot. On the television broadcast of South Carolina’s watch party, the Gamecock players didn’t react positively to the news. ESPN’s Charlie Creme also went to bat for South Carolina over UCLA during the network’s breakdown of the brackets.

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South Carolina’s superior resume stems from Staley’s scheduling philosophy. The Gamecocks play one of the toughest (if not the toughest) out-of-conference slate in college basketball every season. Then, they play a highly competitive schedule in SEC play. The philosophy not only prepares USC for playing tough opponents but also (theoretically) gives the team a leg up on the rest of the country when it comes to NCAA Tournament seeding.

However, with the Gamecocks not picking up the top spot this year, Staley says she may change her scheduling practices.

Speaking with the media after the selection show, Coach Staley said, “I will say this: we’re gonna make adjustments to our schedule in the future if the standard is the standard. If that’s the standard, then we can play any schedule and get a No. 1 seed.”

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The good news for South Carolina for the 2024-2025 NCAA Tournament is that the No. 2 overall seed might have gotten a better draw than the top seed.

In UCLA’s bracket, NC State (one of the hottest teams in the country) is the 2-seed, LSU (a preseason national championship contender) is the 3-seed, Baylor (undefeated over the past two months aside from two losses to top-10 TCU) is the four, Ole Miss (nearly beat Texas in the SEC Tournament) is the 5-seed, and Florida State (ranked in the most recent AP poll) is the six.

In contrast to UCLA’s slate, South Carolina has perhaps the easiest road to the Final Four among No. 1 seeds. Duke and North Carolina are really good as the two and three, respectively. However, the 2-6 of Duke, North Carolina, Maryland, Alabama, and West Virginia appears weaker on paper.

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