Surprise: Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks to open SEC play this week after schedule changed
South Carolina women’s basketball’s SEC opener is back on for Thursday — but the opposing team will be different.
A day after the SEC announced that the No. 5 Gamecocks’ New Year’s Eve matchup with Ole Miss was postponed because of COVID-19 issues, the conference announced USC will host Florida that same day instead.
Like South Carolina, the Gators had their conference opener postponed when their opponent, Vanderbilt, had to pause activities due to positive coronavirus tests and contact tracing.
Thursday’s game will take the place of the USC-UF contest that was scheduled for Feb. 25 in Columbia.
Tip-off will be at 4 p.m. at Colonial Life Arena, and the game will be streamed online via SEC Network Plus. Tickets for the Dec. 31 game against Ole Miss will be honored for this week’s game.
Florida is currently 7-1, having narrowly lost on the road to Florida State and winning the rest of its games against non-Power 5 opponents with relative ease.
The new matchup will ensure the Gamecocks won’t go nearly a month only playing one game. They last took the floor on Dec. 17 in a win over Temple at home.
The Ole Miss postponement was South Carolina’s second COVID-19 related schedule change this season. One of the Gamecocks’ Thanksgiving weekend tournament games against Oklahoma was canceled when the Sooners had a number of positive tests.
USC is currently ranked No. 5 nationally, with Staley’s team sitting at 5-1. Carolina hasn’t had any positive coronavirus cases during the season yet, but Staley had said the team had to deal with several quarantine periods during the preseason.
The South Carolina men’s team has dealt with coronavirus cases that have forced five games to be canceled or postponed, including its SEC opener against Kentucky. As of Monday, coach Frank Martin said he hoped to have his team return to the court Saturday against Florida A&M.
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 3:46 PM.
