Where South Carolina women's basketball stands in the NET heading into Selection Sunday
On Sunday, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley led her team to a third consecutive season with both regular season and SEC Tournament championships. The Gamecocks knocked off the then-No. 1 Texas Longhorns 64-45 to secure the title.
When the AP updated its top-25 poll on Monday, the 30-3 Gamecocks slotted in as the nation’s No. 2 team. The UCLA Bruins occupied the Associated Press’ top spot. As the NET rankings updated on Monday, South Carolina maintained their ranking. Once again, USC is 2nd overall in the NET, behind only the UConn Huskies. Texas, UCLA, Notre Dame, Southern Cal, Duke, TCU, Kansas State, and LSU (in order) round out the NET top 10.
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The NET, for those unfamiliar, is the most important ranking metric used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. It factors in Team Value Index (essentially a team’s on-court results, location of games, and strength of schedule) and adjusted net efficient ratings (how well a team plays in those games, adjusted for the quality of opponent and location of games).
Leading to their prominent NET standing, Dawn Staley’s team owns the nation’s best win-loss resume. At the time of this writing, South Carolina ranks first in women’s college basketball in Quad 1 wins with 16. No other team has more than 14 victories over top teams. The Gamecocks also lead the country in Quad 1 + Quad 2 wins with 20. No other team has more than 18 such victories.
Despite South Carolina tallying nearly double UConn’s total of Quad 1 and Quad 2 victories (20 for the Gamecocks and 11 for the Huskies), Geno Auriemma’s team sits atop the NET. Presumably, UConn’s efficiency statistics and large number of road and neutral-site victories pushed the Huskies ahead.
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South Carolina’s big weekend in Greenville solidified a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament. In fact, according to ESPN’s Charlie Creme, the Gamecocks’ SEC dominance should result in another overall No. 1 seed come Selection Sunday. Creme also believes USC–after the NCAA Tournament’s first two rounds in Columbia–will play in one of the Birmingham brackets.
Selection Sunday is this Sunday, March 16th. ESPN will broadcast the Selection Sunday Show at 8:00 p.m., while the ESPN app makes it available via streaming. The Gamecocks earned a 1 seed each of the last four years and were the presumed No. 1 overall seed before the Covid-19 pandemic canceled the 2019-2020 campaign.
This year’s NCAA Tournament will begin on March 19th, but South Carolina will not play until March 21st or 22nd.
