No. 1! Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks top preseason rankings in a close vote
South Carolina women’s basketball is at the top of the rankings once again.
The Gamecocks are No. 1 in the 2021-22 preseason Associated Press poll released Tuesday, just ahead of No. 2 UConn and reigning national champion Stanford at No. 3.
South Carolina returns every member of last year’s Final Four team and added the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class in 2021.
“With who we brought back and who added for this season, we knew we would start out among the hunted, and it’s something that our program is getting used to,” USC coach Dawn Staley told the AP. “Watching practice every day, I can see that we have the pieces and the competitive fire to reach all of our goals. We have a few more weeks to put those pieces together into a cohesive, successful team that can live up to this preseason ranking.”
South Carolina received 14 first-place votes and 705 total points. The Gamecocks edged out UConn, which received 10 first-place votes and 696 points. Stanford received five first-place votes. (Total points are based on 25 points for a first-place vote, 24 points for a second-place vote and through one point for a 25th-place vote.)
USC was also No. 1 in last year’s AP preseason poll and finished fourth in the final rankings. The Gamecocks ended the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season as the top-ranked team.
South Carolina has been ranked inside the preseason top 10 of the AP poll every year since the 2014-15 season and in the top four each of those years, with the exception of 2018-19 season.
The 2021-22 schedule includes at least four matchups with preseason top 10 teams.
South Carolina’s regular-season schedule opens in Raleigh, North Carolina against No. 5 N.C. State on Nov. 9. The Gamecocks get No. 4 Maryland at Colonial Life Arena on Dec. 12 and No. 3 Stanford at home on Dec. 21. USC hosts UConn when it steps out of Southeastern Conference play on Jan. 27.
The Gamecocks could potentially play six games against preseason top 10 teams, should South Carolina, No. 10 Oregon and No. 2 UConn advance in the Bad Boy Mowers Women’s Battle 4 Atlantis in Paradise Island, Bahamas. South Carolina plays either Oregon or Oklahoma on Nov. 21 and could potentially play UConn on Nov. 22.
In its SEC schedule, South Carolina will play twice against No. 13 Kentucky, twice against No. 23 Texas A&M and have a home game Feb. 20 against No. 15 Tennessee.
South Carolina will play an exhibition against Benedict at Colonial Life Arena on Nov. 1 before opening the season officially with its top-five road matchup against N.C. State on Nov. 9.
Gamecocks picked to win SEC
The Southeastern Conference media poll picked South Carolina as the preseason favorite to win the SEC. Tennessee, Texas A&M, Kentucky and Georgia rounded out the SEC’s top five.
South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston and Zia Cooke were selected to the preseason All-SEC team. The Gamecocks were the only team to get two players on the preseason team. Boston also received votes for preseason SEC Women’s Basketball Player of the Year, though the distinction was ultimately given to Kentucky’s Rhyne Howard.
SEC order of finish, predicted by media
1. South Carolina
2. Tennessee
3. Texas A&M
4. Kentucky
5. Georgia
6. Arkansas
7. LSU
8. Ole Miss
9. Mississippi State
10. Alabama
11. Missouri
12. Florida
13. Auburn
14. Vanderbilt
Preseason All-SEC team
Rhyne Howard, Kentucky (Player of the Year)
Khayla Pointer, LSU
Shakira Austin, Ole Miss
Aliyah Boston, South Carolina
Zia Cooke, South Carolina
AP women’s preseason Top 25
Ranking, team, total points, first-place votes
1, South Carolina, 705, 14
2, Connecticut, 696, 10
3, Stanford, 682, 5
4, Maryland, 632, 0
5, North Carolina State, 589, 0
6, Louisville, 575, 0
7, Baylor, 522, 0
8, Indiana, 521, 0
9, Iowa, 513, 0
10, Oregon, 479, 0
11, Michigan, 403, 0
12, Iowa State, 376, 0
13, Kentucky, 368, 0
14, Oregon State, 273, 0
15, Tennessee, 244, 0
16, Florida State, 231, 0
17, Ohio State, 197, 0
17, Georgia Tech, 197, 0
19, West Virginia, 192, 0
20, UCLA, 175, 0
21, South Florida, 146, 0
22, Arizona, 135, 0
23, Texas A&M, 123, 0
24, Virginia Tech, 98, 0
25, Texas, 79, 0
This story was originally published October 19, 2021 at 11:59 AM.
