Dawn Staley Acknowledges Potential Schedule Changes After South Carolina Misses Out on No. 1 Overall Seed

Despite an impressive record against one of the toughest schedules in the nation, South Carolina earned the No. 2 overall seed for the 2025 Women’s NCAA Tournament. Dawn Staley is now questioning the future of the Gamecocks’ scheduling strategy in light of this decision.

During an appearance on Women’s Bracketology on ESPN, Holly Rowe asked Staley about South Carolina being placed as the second No. 1 seed. Staley expressed surprise, particularly given the challenging non-conference schedule the Gamecocks faced, coupled with their strong SEC performance. She is now rethinking how they approach scheduling, believing it could have made the difference in securing the top overall seed.

“I’m a little bit surprised, um, because we manufactured our schedule and put ourselves in position to be the No. 1 overall seed,” Staley explained. “I do think, if you do, you know, the blind test and you put our resume against any other team in the field? I think, I think you’ll pick us. That’s just plain and simple.”

Staley continued, emphasizing the Gamecocks’ strength of schedule: “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 hiccups that we had during the season, I don’t know what will. 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’s non-conference schedule included eight powerhouse opponents, with six of them—UCLA, UConn, Duke, NC State, TCU, and Michigan—earning top-two seeds in the tournament. The Gamecocks came out of that stretch with a 7-2 record, losing only to UCLA by 15 points in Los Angeles and to UConn by 29 in Columbia.

Additionally, South Carolina dominated the SEC, finishing with an 18-1 record. Their only loss came on the road against Texas, another top seed. The Gamecocks managed seven wins against ranked teams and defeated every SEC team that made it into the tournament bracket, including a victory over Texas in the SEC Championship.

Despite these achievements, the selection committee awarded the No. 1 overall seed to UCLA (30-2), the Big Ten Tournament champions. The committee’s decision largely came down to the head-to-head outcome between the two teams, as well as the margins in their respective losses.

Even though the Gamecocks earned a No. 1 seed for the fifth consecutive year and the ninth time under Staley, the No. 2 ranking has led her to reconsider how the team should schedule moving forward to avoid this outcome in the future.