No ducking here: Dawn Staley on South Carolina WBB adding games with UConn
A day after South Carolina women’s basketball announced its plans to rekindle a rivalry with UConn in 2026-27, another future matchup with the Huskies has been added to the calendar.
South Carolina will play in the Ally Tipoff in 2026-27, 2027-28 and 2028-29, the Charlotte Sports Foundation announced Thursday.
The 2027-28 opponent? None other than Geno Auriemma and the UConn Huskies.
South Carolina and UConn are not playing in the regular season this year, and that alone is newsworthy. The rivalry had become a mainstay of college women’s hoops as the Gamecocks and Huskies have played each other in 11 straight regular seasons.
When speaking to local media Thursday, South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley was quick to emphasize the Gamecocks were not avoiding playing UConn.
“We’ve been accused of ducking and all of that crap,” Staley said. “Like come on, we’ve played UConn for the past 11 seasons. Now is the time to duck? We could have ducked seven, eight or nine years ago.”
The Gamecocks entered the 2024-25 season with a four-game win streak over UConn. But South Carolina played the Huskies twice last season and lost both times, once at home in February and again in the 2025 national championship game in Tampa.
Staley said the home-and-home South Carolina and UConn previously didn’t continue this year because of UConn’s conference schedule.
UConn added two conference games to its slate this season after the Big East switched from an 18-game conference schedule to a 20-game schedule. Regardless of the change, Staley said she and Auriemma were going to find a way to play.
“It just so happened that I think they got more games scheduled on their conference,” Staley said. “So it was hard to continue the home-and-home, but we were gonna find a way to play. … It’s a great competition for us and for women’s basketball.”
South Carolina is just one game into the 2025-26 season and has already announced several future games this week.
The Gamecocks will open next season by playing Maryland in Paris at the Oui Play event. South Carolina announced two future games with UConn — one at the 2026 Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase in Connecticut and the other at the 2027 Ally Tipoff event. The Gamecocks will also play North Carolina (2026) and NC State (2028) in future Ally Tipoff events.
South Carolina will play the second game of its 2025-26 regular season Friday against Bowling Green at home.
