South Carolina women's basketball: Gamecocks have their Road to the Final Four
South Carolina learned its NCAA Tournament path Sunday night. The Gamecocks are the one seed in the Birmingham 2 region and the second overall seed.
South Carolina begins its quest for back-to-back national championships on Friday against Tennessee Tech. Also in Columbia are #8 Utah and #9 Indiana. The winners will play on Sunday.
Game times and television information will be announced later.
South Carolina has played Tennessee Tech once before in the tournament, a 77-73 loss in 1989. The Gamecocks beat Indiana 79-75 in the Sweet 16 last season the only tournament meeting between the two. South Carolina and Utah have never met in the tournament but played in the regular season last year.
South Carolina earned a one seed for the ninth time in program history and the fifth consecutive season. South Carolina was the top overall seed the last three seasons.
There was some intrigue after the Gamecocks were only a two seed in the second top 16 reveal. But in the end, the only drama was whether they would be the first or the second overall seed.
South Carolina ranked second in the NET and had 16 Quad 1 wins, two more than anyone else in the country (and three times the number UConn, ranked first in the NET, had). There were also two dominant wins over Texas to offset one narrow loss, and they claimed their status as the best team in the SEC with the tournament title.
Dawn Staley was upset the Gamecocks didn’t get the top overall seed, saying she will adjust South Carolina’s schedule based on feedback from the selection committee.
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“It’s disappointing, it really is,” Staley said. “I’d like to get some feedback on how they came to that conclusion because we put together, we manufactured, a schedule that if done right should produce an overall number one seed. I will say this, we’re going to make adjustments to our schedule in the future.”
South Carolina still gets to play in its preferred regional and on its preferred schedule. The Gamecocks play in Birmingham, which is a much closer trip than the other regional location in Spokane, and they play a Friday/Sunday schedule, which would give them an extra day of rest if they make the Final Four in Tampa.
The other one seeds are UCLA (Spokane 1), Southern Cal (Spokane 4), and Texas (Birmingham 3). The other top teams in the Birmingham 2 region are #2 Duke, #3 North Carolina, and #4 Alabama.
The SEC got 10 teams in the tournament. South Carolina is joined by #1 Texas, #3 LSU, #3 Oklahoma, #4 Kentucky, #5 Ole Miss, #5 Tennessee, #7 Vanderbilt, #9 Mississippi State, and #4 Alabama.
South Carolina also has a chance to set the NCAA’s all-time attendance record this weekend. If the Gamecocks can average a little under 13,250 fans for the two games, they will break Tennessee’s all-time average attendance record (16,565) set in 1999.
