South Carolina women's basketball: SEC Tournament notebook
South Carolina Women’s Basketball: News • Recruiting • Schedule • Roster • Stats • SEC Standings • NCAA Polls • Scholarship Chart
The 2024 SEC Tournament saw buzzer-beaters, scuffles, and broken records. We recap a very eventful weekend.
All-Tournament Team
The All-Tournament team was Flau’jae Johnson (LSU), Angel Reese (LSU), Kamilla Cardoso (South Carolina), MiLaysia Fulwiley (South Carolina, MVP), and Rickea Jackson (Tennessee).
Fulwiley joins Aleighsa Welch, Tiffany Mitchell, A’ja Wilson (twice), Mikiah Herbert Harrigan, and Aliyah Boston (twice) as Gamecocks named tournament MVP.
The Rich Get Richer
In addition to her $3.1 million annual salary, Dawn Staley has added some nice bonuses. Per the terms of her contract, Staley earned $15,000 for winning 11 or more SEC games, $100,000 for winning the SEC Regular Season and Tournament championships, $25,000 for being named SEC Coach of the Year, and $25,000 for making the NCAA Tournament.
If you want to feel poor, that’s a total of $165,000 in bonuses, so far.
The big bonuses come from advancing in the NCAA tournament, beginning with $50,000 for making the Sweet Sixteen.
It Just Means More
The semifinals and the championship game were all sold out by Friday morning. Attendance for Saturday was 12,784 and Sunday’s title game was 13,163. Total attendance was 64,905.
According to the SEC record books, but not yet confirmed by the SEC, this was both the most attended tournament and the largest single-session crowd since the tournament began in 1987.
Top 10
- 1
Don Brown fired
UMass parts ways with HC
- 2
Iowa QB out
Ankle injury sidelines Brendan Sullivan
- 3
Phil Longo fired
Wisconsin announces firing of OC
- 4
Peter Boulware chimes in
FSU legend offers Norvell advice
- 5
Paul Finebaum
'Kirby Smart was different'
Under the current contract, the SEC tournament has one more year in Greenville. Don’t be surprised if the 2026 tournament heads west to welcome the new programs, Oklahoma and Texas, but returns to Greenville again after that.
Streaking
The tournament champions have been fairly predictable. South Carolina has now won eight of the past ten SEC tournaments. In the previous ten years, Tennessee won seven times. That leaves only five times in the past 20 seasons that someone other than South Carolina or Tennessee has won the SEC Tournament.
Those are: Vanderbilt (2007 over LSU), Vanderbilt (2009 over Auburn), Texas A&M (2013 over Kentucky), Mississippi State (2019 over Arkansas), and Kentucky (2022 over South Carolina).
South Carolina has won 16 straight against LSU. Dawn Staley has won five straight against Kim Mulkey.
Goodbye, Farewell, Amen
On Monday morning, Kentucky announced that Kyra Elzy had been fired. The move wasn’t surprising – despite winning the 2022 SEC Tournament with a miracle run in Nashville, Kentucky had been on a downward trend under Elzy. Recruiting, which was Elzy’s calling card as an assistant, has also suffered during the past few cycles.
At least Elzy got until Monday. Utah State coach Kayla Ard was fired following the Aggies’ loss in the Mountain West Tournament. As in, immediately following the game, before her post-game press conference. She then broke the news in the press conference.
