South Carolina WBB won’t play UConn this season, report says
If Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks want revenge for their 2024-25 national championship loss to UConn, it doesn’t look like it will happen in the upcoming regular season.
CT Insider reported Friday that South Carolina and UConn will not play during the 2025-26 regular season, meaning any potential rematch between the Huskies and Gamecocks would have to wait until the postseason.
A UConn spokesperson told The State that a game between the two teams is not currently scheduled for the 2025-26 season, while a South Carolina spokesperson did not confirm or deny the report.
This past year’s regular season game between South Carolina-UConn was the second-consecutive matchup held in Colonial Life Arena. The teams have typically alternate venues — aside from 2022, when the game was canceled so South Carolina could make up an SEC contest postponed by COVID-19.
To make up for that cancellation, this year’s game was in Columbia and was the last addendum to the original South Carolina-UConn game contract, meaning there would need to be another renewal of that agreement in order to keep the series going for future years.
USC-UConn series history
South Carolina entered the 2024-25 season on a four-game winning streak against UConn, but they finished losing two straight.
The Huskies beat the Gamecocks at Colonial Life Arena 87-58 in February. A few months later, UConn beat USC again in the national championship game, cutting down the nets after an 82-59 victory in Tampa, Florida.
The two teams have played each other in the last 11 regular seasons. UConn leads the all-time series, 11-5. Staley called UConn the “standard in our sport” back in February and said she’s built her program based on UConn.
“You can etch your place in the history of our game because you’ve played them so much over the years, and you’re winning,” Staley said on “Carolina Calls.” “So it puts you in a really good place to win a national championship when you’re measuring yourself against the standard.”
A change in scheduling strategy?
Back on Selection Sunday, UCLA was named the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Gamecocks were still a No. 1 seed in the bracket, but Staley said after the fact she was disappointed they were not the No. 1 overall seed.
The Gamecocks recorded a 16-3 record against Quad 1 opponents this past season. Those 16 wins is the most of any team in the country. South Carolina also recorded seven wins against ranked opponents, the second-most in the country.
“I do think if you do the blind test and you put our resume against any other team in the field, I think you’ll pick us. That’s just plain and simple,” Staley said in an ESPN interview. “...We’ve got the most Quad 1 wins. If having more Quad 1 wins doesn’t supersede some of the hiccups that we had during the season, I don’t know what will. So for us, maybe we don’t put ourselves in a position where we have hiccups.”
After South Carolina missed out on the No. 1 overall seed, Staley went as far to say South Carolina might consider changing how it builds its future schedules as a result of the snub.
“I’d like to get some feedback on how they came to that conclusion. Because we put together, we manufactured a schedule that, if done right, it should produce the overall number one seed.
“But I will say this: We’re going to make adjustments to our schedule in the future if the standard is the standard. If that’s the standard, then we can play any schedule and get a number one seed.”
South Carolina has yet to release its full non-conference schedule for the 2025-26 season, but same games have been announced via other teams and various announcements. Here’s a quick look at those games:
- Nov. 15 vs Southern California (at Crypto Arena in Los Angeles)
- Thanksgiving Weekend vs Duke, UCLA and Texas (Players Era Championship in Las Vegas)
- Dec. 4 at Louisville (ACC-SEC Challenge)
- Dec. 18 at South Florida
- Dec. 28 vs Providence
Of those teams, all but one made the NCAA Tournament last year.
This story was originally published June 27, 2025 at 1:26 PM.
