Fight for The Real SC: South Carolina, Southern Cal lock in future WBB matchups
The South Carolina and Southern California women’s basketball teams will play a two-game neutral site series starting next season, USC athletics announced Monday.
The games will be held in neutral sites and called “The Real SC Series,” a play on how both programs have claimed the abbreviation USC in the past (with varying success).
Next year’s game will be played on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The following year, the series will played in Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2026.
Complete Sports Management, which South Carolina worked with to set up its historic 2023 game against Notre Dame in Paris, is helping organize the games.
“I will always choose elevating women’s basketball, and that’s especially true in scheduling,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said in a release, adding that she likes the event’s “creativity in bringing not just two great programs together but engaging their fan bases on both coasts in a debate they love to have.”
Major non-conference meeting
The matchups will likely be ones of epic proportions, pitting two of the current top women’s basketball programs against each other.
Southern Cal is led by superstar Juju Watkins. The sophomore guard was an All-American her freshman year and has catapulted herself into the National Player of the Year conversation this year after winning Big 10 Player of the Year.
The Trojans were a powerhouse in the 1980s when they won two NCAA titles and made three Final Four appearances. Southern Cal has seen some revitalization in recent years. The Trojans snapped an eight-year NCAA Tournament drought with an appearance in 2023 and were a No. 1 seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament.
And the Gamecocks, of course, have won three national championships since 2017 and routinely one of the top seeds and title contenders in the NCAA field. South Carolina just won its ninth SEC tournament championship in 11 years on Sunday.
Tickets for the matchup will go on sale to the general public this Friday at 1 p.m.
This story was originally published March 10, 2025 at 2:07 PM.
