South Carolina women's basketball: Updating the Gamecocks' 2024-25 schedule
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Dawn Staley announced on Wednesday that South Carolina women’s basketball will open next season in Las Vegas against an opponent to be determined. What else is on the Gamecocks’ schedule?
South Carolina can schedule up to 29 games or 28 if it plays in a multi-team event.
Oklahoma and Texas join the SEC next season, but the conference schedule will remain at 16 games. South Carolina will play Kentucky twice and each of the other teams once. The remaining home and away opponents have yet to be announced.
That leaves 13 non-conference games. South Carolina will play in Las Vegas to open the season, likely on November 4. On November 10, South Carolina and NC State play in Charlotte for the Ally Tipoff.
South Carolina will host Duke in return for last season’s game in Durham. UConn will also play in Columbia as a make-good for the canceled 2022 game. South Carolina will also play an ACC team as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge and should get to host since the Gamecocks played at North Carolina last season.
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South Carolina will play at Clemson this season. South Carolina will also play at UCLA in return for the 2022 game in Columbia. The Gamecocks will probably try to pair that game with another West Coast game to make the trip financially viable (conceivably, South Carolina could combine Las Vegas and UCLA into one trip).
That adds up to seven confirmed games.
There are some unconfirmed opponents as well. Bowling Green owes South Carolina a home game in return for last season. That game should be this season, but that has not been confirmed.
The contract with Maryland expired after last season’s game, but both coaches indicated the series will continue. East Carolina likely owes South Carolina a return game from last season. These would bring South Carolina to ten games.
South Carolina also owes Charleston Southern a home game in return for the game in Columbia in 2022. The Gamecocks reportedly don’t want to play at the tiny 881-seat BucDome and were able to postpone the game last season.
New Charlotte coach Tomekia Reed, formerly at Jackson State, said after her introductory press conference this week that she has spoken to Staley about starting a series that would bring the Gamecocks to Charlotte.
“Scheduling is really hard because people don’t want to play us. They don’t,” Staley said. “Really good teams don’t want to play us and I don’t get it. People don’t realize that it doesn’t hurt you to play us, it only helps you.”
For the exhibition, I’d be surprised if the opponent isn’t Allen University. Staley likes to schedule local foes Allen and Benedict for the exhibition, and former Gamecock Olivia Gaines is a first-year coach at Allen.
South Carolina does not owe games to Utah or North Carolina since those were one-off contests. The Utah game was presented by the same organizers as the Las Vegas Hall of Fame Series.
