South Carolina women's basketball: How does the loss to Texas change the Gamecocks' season outlook?

South Carolina’s championship odds took a hit with the loss to Texas, but not as much as you might think. We try to answer all the questions for the final three weeks of the season.

Is South Carolina out of the running for the SEC regular season championship?
Not at all. The Gamecocks are still in the driver’s seat. Win out and you win a trophy even if Texas also wins out. The SEC doesn’t break ties for regular-season titles. It hasn’t happened since 2015 when South Carolina and Tennessee shared the title. In 2019, South Carolina had a chance to beat Mississippi State in the final game of the season to force a tie but lost.

The Gamecocks will be heavily favored in four of their five remaining conference games (Florida, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss), and strong favorites in the other (Kentucky).

The road is much bumpier for everyone else. Texas and LSU still have to play each other. Both have to play Kentucky and the Wildcats also still have to play Tennessee and South Carolina.

But the Gamecocks are out of the running for the top seed in the tournament, right?
Again, not at all. But this is where they have to do some scoreboard-watching. South Carolina has the tiebreaker on LSU because of the head-to-head win, so as long as South Carolina wins out they don’t have to worry about LSU. 

If South Carolina and Texas both win out, it goes to the third tiebreaker to determine the top seed. 

What is the third tiebreaker?
The third tiebreaker is a coin-flip by the commissioner. If the league office doesn’t figure out how to make Greg Sankey flipping a coin into a 30-minute special on the SEC Network, what are they even doing?

The SEC Tournament is fun, but I care about the NCAA Tournament and South Carolina won’t be a one seed will it?
Also again, not at all. Unlike the SEC tournament, which is determined by math (and a potential coin flip), the NCAA Tournament involves a human element in the selection committee. 

There is a list of criteria the selection committee follows, but I’ve covered this sport for close to two decades, and that experience tells me that the selection committee values one thing above all else: the number of quality wins.

South Carolina is still the best in the country with 10 Quad 1 wins, and could add four more by the end of the regular season. Dawn Staley scheduled a brutal non-conference schedule so that South Carolina could add all of those Quad 1 wins and it paid off. South Carolina is still a few losses away from dropping to a two seed.

Fortunately, we don’t have to speculate on the committee’s thinking. The first top 16 reveal is on Sunday, February 16. We’ll know then where South Carolina stands.

Win tickets to the South Carolina-Arkansas women’s basketball game

But I thought the Gamecocks fell below the Longhorns in the polls.
Don’t pay too much attention to the polls. They are just for fun. The voters in the polls are not on the selection committee. 

The poll voters tend to favor recency. Texas beat South Carolina more recently than South Carolina beat Texas, so we’ll reward Texas. There are a lot of things the poll voters consider that the selection committee does not.

Recency is not one of the criteria considered by the selection committee. It used to be a part of the guidelines (remember the “last ten games?”), but not anymore. There is some consideration as to how a team is playing at the end of the season, but that probably won’t apply here.

The two biggest factors the selection committee considers are NET and Quad 1 record. I already explained how South Carolina still has the most Quad 1 wins. South Carolina is also still ranked first in the NET.

The selection committee will view it as two teams beating the other at home, one by four points and one by 17 points. If any decision came down to a head-to-head, the committee would lean garnet.

Does Sunday’s game against UConn mean more now?
Yes. Usually, the annual UConn game is just a fun out-of-conference measuring stick, but also relatively meaningless for both teams’ postseason aspirations. That’s why both teams agreed to postpone the game in 2022 in favor of making up a missed conference game (Sunday’s game is the makeup for that game).

This season, neither team wants to have another loss on their resume. UConn is just 3-3 in Quad 1 games and this is the Huskies’ last chance to get a top-tier win this season. South Carolina is going to lean heavily on that 10-2 record in Quad 1 games, but a third loss would at least crack the door for another team to sneak into a top seed.

So I shouldn’t give up on the season and move on?
No. Although softball had a great opening weekend.

Hasn’t it been a long time to be talking to yourself like this?
Hush.

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