South Carolina women's basketball picked as preseason SEC champs, Gamecocks put two on All-SEC team

On Monday, the SEC league office announced results from the conference’s preseason voting for All-SEC teams and end-of-season standings. Voting was conducted by select media members of the national media and media from across the SEC. As expected, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and her team have been picked as the class of the conference.

The entire order of finish can be seen below:

1. South Carolina Gamecocks
2. Texas Longhorns
3. LSU Tigers
4. Tennessee Lady Volunteers
5. Oklahoma Sooners
6. Ole Miss Rebels
7. Vanderbilt Commodores
8. Kentucky Wildcats
9. Alabama Crimson Tide
10. Mississippi State Bulldogs
11. Florida Gators
12. Georgia Bulldogs
13. Missouri Tigers
14. Texas A&M Aggies
15. Auburn Tigers
16. Arkansas Razorbacks

South Carolina has won nine of the last 12 regular-season SEC Championships and nine of the last 11 SEC Tournaments. That includes three SEC regular-season crowns in a row. After splitting two regular-season meetings, the 2024-2025 Gamecocks technically shared the SEC title with Texas but won the season series thanks to blowout wins in the SEC Tournament Championship Game and the NCAA Tournament Final Four.

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The Gamecocks put two players on the preseason All-SEC squad. South Carolina, Texas, and LSU are the only teams with multiple players on the eleven-layer preseason All-SEC team. Former Gamecock Talaysia Cooper (who now plays for Tennessee) also made the team.

Sophomore forward Joyce Edwards made the first team. She led USC in scoring last season (12.7 points per game) en route to first-team All-SEC honors, a Freshman All-American selection, and inclusion on the Honorable Mention All-American team. She is regarded as one of the best sophomores in the country. With Chloe Kitts and Ashlyn Watkins out for the season while rehabbing knee injuries, Edwards is expected to start after coming off the bench as a freshman.

Senior transfer portal addition Ta’Niya Latson made the second team. Latson, who joined the Gamecocks after three years at Florida State, was an All-American guard for the Seminoles. She led the nation in scoring for the 2024-2025 season (25.2 points per game), marking the third year in a row she logged better than a 21-points-per-game scoring average. Virtually unanimously, Latson was considered one of the three best transfer portal additions of the offseason.

Texas junior Madison Booker is the league’s preseason Player of the Year. She won the SEC Player of the Year honor last season.

You can see the entire preseason All-SEC team below:

Preseason First Team All-SEC
Flau’Jae Johnson, LSU Tigers
Raegan Beers, Oklahoma Sooners
Joyce Edwards, South Carolina Gamecocks
Madison Booker, Texas Longhorns
Mikayla Blakes, Vanderbilt Commodores

Preseason Second Team All-SEC
Clara Strack, Kentucky Wildcats
Mikaylah Williams, LSU Tigers
Cotie McMahon, Ole Miss Rebels
Ta’Niya Latson, South Carolina Gamecocks
Talaysia Cooper, Tennessee Lady Volunteers
Rori Harmon, Texas Longhorns

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