ESPN flubs South Carolina’s logo — again

Guess being defending national champs doesn’t mean people need to know what your logo looks like.

That’s the lesson South Carolina women’s basketball fans learned Thursday evening when ESPN revealed the NCAA selection committee’s rankings of the top 16 teams in the country.

The Gamecocks earned a No. 8 ranking, which would make them a No. 2 seed for the first time in program history if the national championship were to start today. And on first glance, nothing seemed amiss with The Worldwide Leader in Sports’ broadcast of the rankings.

But take a second look, and you’ll realize that ESPN has done it again — they’ve mixed up South Carolina and South Carolina State. While the logo to the left of USC’s name in the rankings is the classic Gamecock, the one behind the actual words “South Carolina” is the bulldog of South Carolina State.

And yes, before you wonder if you have amnesia, this is not the first time ESPN has made this very same mistake.

When previewing South Carolina football’s Outback Bowl matchup with Michigan, the sports broadcaster used S.C. State logo instead of USC’s, in addition to listing the wrong date and time of the game. ESPN also used highlights of the wrong team on a different occasion when scouting the same game too.

As it turns out, South Carolina wasn’t the only team to have the wrong logo inserted into the background. Georgia, who earned the No. 16 ranking, had Georgia Southern’s eagle head mascot inserted.

In the end, however, it didn’t matter, as South Carolina grabbed its fourth SEC win of the year over Vanderbilt.

This story was originally published January 18, 2018 at 10:50 PM with the headline "ESPN flubs South Carolina’s logo — again."