Dawn Staley admits scheduling could change after South Carolina wasn't No. 1 overall seed

South Carolina (30-3), despite posting that record against one of the toughest schedules in the sport this season, is the No. 2 overall seed for the 2025 Women’s NCAA Tournament. Because of that, Dawn Staley isn’t sure what the Gamecocks’ scheduling will look like in the future.

Staley was asked about South Carolina being the second of the No. 1 seeds by Holly Rowe tonight while on ‘Women’s Bracketology’ on ESPN. She said that seeding surprised her considering the slate that they played with what they scheduled in the non-conference and then played in the SEC. That then leads her to possibly re-thinking what they do with the schedule since it may have made the difference in them being the first overall seed in the bracket.

“I’m a little bit surprised, um, because we manufactured our schedule and put ourselves in position to be the No. 1 overall seed,” said Staley. “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, I think you’ll pick us. That’s just plain and simple.”

“We do need to voice it. I do need to voice the fact that we put a schedule together. We got the most Quad 1 wins. If having more Quad 1 wins doesn’t supersede some of the, the hiccups that we had during the season, I don’t know what will,” Staley continued. “So, for us, maybe we don’t put ourselves in a position where we have hiccups so we aren’t, you know, we aren’t – they’ll have to lower the standard for us to get a number one overall seed.”

South Carolina had eight power opponents plus another power in their non-conference with six of those teams in UCLA, UConn, Duke, NC State, TCU, Michigan, and Iowa State and five of them being top-two seeds themselves in the Bruins, Huskies, Blue Devils, Wolfpack, and Horned Frogs. The Gamecocks beat all but two of them with a 7-2 record in that stretch with the one loss being to UCLA, who got that No. 1 overall seed, by fifteen in Los Angeles and one loss being to UConn by 29 in Columbia.

That said, that’s also not to mention the 18-1 overall record that South Carolina then posted against the Southeastern Conference. They won all but one game against their league, with the one loss coming on the road to the other top team in the conference and a one-seed themselves in Texas, with seven wins against ranked teams and at least one win against all of the nine teams who made it into the bracket in the SEC. That includes the SEC Championship where they beat the Longhorns for a second time.

Still, the selection committee elected to give UCLA (30-2), the winner of the Big Ten Tournament, the No. 1 overall seed. That came down to that head-to-head outcome as well as the margins in their five total losses.

South Carolina is still a No. 1 seed for a fifth straight year and a ninth total time under Staley. Even so, being No. 2 rather than No. 1 has Staley reconsidering how to avoid that distinction in their future.