South Carolina’s regular-season showdown with UConn this season won’t be the last
The South Carolina women’s basketball team’s series with Connecticut will continue past this season.
The two storied women’s basketball programs announced Monday a two-year extension to continue their series. USC will host the Huskies in 2021-22 — as previously scheduled — travel to Storrs, Connecticut in 2022-23 and then host the Huskies again in the 2023-24 season.
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley talked in 2020 about the importance of scheduling the Huskies each year.
“You wanna measure yourself, and they were the best team in the country and the decade, and what better way to do that? Their style of play is a little bit of different than what you usually see. They just execute and play both sides of the ball at a really high level, and you just want to continue to measure yourself,” Staley said.
The two teams began playing in 2007. They resumed regular matchups in 2015 and have played every season since then. The schools have played 10 times, including once in the NCAA tournament, with UConn winning nine of those game. The Huskies won 63-59 this year.
USC’s lone win in the series came in 2020 when the Gamecocks won 70-52 at Colonial Life Arena.
Both South Carolina and UConn are expected to be among the nation’s best once again next year. The Gamecocks have the top-ranked recruiting class in the country coming in, according to ESPN. In way-too-early rankings from ESPN, Sports Illustrated and The Athletic, South Carolina has checked in at No. 2, No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. The only teams ahead of them have been UConn and, in The Athletic’s case, Stanford.
This story was originally published June 28, 2021 at 4:44 PM.
