Where Dawn Staley, South Carolina stand at halfway point of SEC play
South Carolina women’s basketball and the rest of its SEC contemporaries have hit the halfway point in conference play.
Dawn Staley and the No. 3 Gamecocks are 22-2 overall this year and are atop the Southeastern Conference with an 8-1 record in league play.
South Carolina is riding a three-game win streak that started with the 26-point shellacking of No. 5 Vanderbilt and included back-to-back road wins over Auburn and Texas A&M. The Gamecocks’ lone SEC loss came just before the streak (to Oklahoma on the road in overtime).
USC, which has only lost five SEC games since 2020, is used to getting through conference play relatively unscathed. This year, the league is one of the deepest conferences in the country and arguably looks better than ever from top to bottom. The SEC landed 10 teams in the NCAA Tournament last year and is projected to have 11 teams earn bids in ESPN’s latest bracketology.
“If you look at our conference ... it is the best conference in the country, night in and night out,” Staley said last week. “[There] probably won’t even be any single loss teams in our conference. It’s just too tough. It’s just really too tough. If there is, they’re deserving to be a champion in our league. And it also puts you in a position to compete for national championships when you come out of the SEC.”
As the regular season enters its final full month, let’s take a look at the race for the SEC regular season title, the road ahead for South Carolina and a few award favorites.
Who are the SEC contenders?
Here’s how the SEC standings look as of Tuesday:
- 1) South Carolina: 8-1
- 2)Tennessee: 6-1
- 3) Vanderbilt: 7-2
- 4) LSU: 7-2
- 5) Texas: 6-2
- 6) Ole Miss: 6-2
- 7) Alabama: 5-4
- 8) Kentucky: 5-4
- 9) Oklahoma: 5-4
- 10) Georgia: 4-4
- 11) Missouri: 3-6
- 12) Mississippi State: 3-6
- 13) Auburn: 2-7
- 14) Texas A&M: 1-8
- 15) Florida: 1-8
- 16) Arkansas: 0-8
South Carolina and Tennessee are in the best spot so far, both with just one SEC loss. But the Gamecocks currently have the edge on the No. 1 spot in the standings since they’ve played one more game (and thus have a higher winning percentage).
The top tier, so to speak, of teams in the SEC are still USC, Texas and LSU, but others have made a push to join the cream of the crop. Vanderbilt has notably been the biggest surprise.
The Commodores started the year off 20-0 and climbed to its highest ranking in The Associated Press Top 25 in over 20 years. Vanderbilt appeared to certify they were true contenders with a win over LSU back in January but have shown signs of humanity with losses to Ole Miss and Mississippi State in recent weeks.
Tennessee and Ole Miss are two other teams from the middle of the SEC who have had moments where they looked like contenders early in league play. The Volunteers started off 6-0 in SEC play before losing to Mississippi State last week. Ole Miss has wins over Oklahoma and Vanderbilt this season but losses to Georgia and Texas.
Per usual, the middle of the conference will be a nightmare to seed when it comes time for the SEC Tournament. Kentucky and Oklahoma — who both have big SEC wins (Kentucky’s over LSU and Oklahoma’s over South Carolina, respectively) — have slipped in recent weeks and are now 5-4 in the conference. Alabama and Georgia also crept into the Top 25 rankings in the last few weeks but are now 5-4 and 4-4 in SEC play.
The race for the regular-season championship is still likely to come down to just South Carolina, Texas and LSU (with Vanderbilt being a dark horse) while a game or two will likely be the difference between fourth and 10th place in the standings once the season ends, just like last season.
USC, Texas and LSU still have the best odds of any SEC team to win the national championship, according to DraftKings.
South Carolina’s road forward
South Carolina has seven SEC games remaining. Of those, five come against opponents ranked in the latest AP Top 25.
The Gamecocks are favored to win all but one of their final seven games by at least 10 points, per BartTorvik.com. The lone outlier is South Carolina’s marquee matchup with LSU in Baton Rouge on Valentine’s Day. The basketball analytics site has LSU as a 1.6-point favorite and gives South Carolina a 44% chance to win the game.
Before USC gets to LSU though, it needs to take care of Mississippi State and Tennessee. The Gamecocks should handle the Bulldogs with relative ease. But depth and fatigue could play a factor once Tennessee comes to Columbia on Sunday.
USC is short-handed with both Agot Makeer and Ta’Niya Latson being sidelined with leg injuries with no timetable for a return. Tennessee will be South Carolina’s third matchup of the week, combining the smaller roster with the Vols’ unique system (full-court defensive press, a high-speed offense and frequent substitutions), so the Gamecocks could have a trap game on their hands.
South Carolina’s win over Texas last month was crucial to giving the Gamecocks an early leg up in the SEC standings. Wins over Tennessee and LSU would all but seal up the SEC regular season title and No. 1 seed in the conference tournament for USC. Still, the Gamecocks will need to finish the season strong with wins over Ole Miss and Kentucky to fully secure that.
A look at two potential SEC accolades
Last year, Texas took home the two biggest conference awards. Longhorns head coach Vic Schaefer was SEC Coach of the Year, and star forward Madison Booker won SEC Player of the Year.
It looks like it’ll be hard for Texas to win both of those awards again this season.
Booker, who was named preseason player of the year by the league’s media and coaches, increased her scoring output from 16 points per game last season to 19.1 this season.
Her biggest competitors look to be Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes (the SEC Freshman of the Year last year) who is averaging a league-best 25.1 points per game; and South Carolina’s Joyce Edwards, who is having a career year with 20.3 points and 6.4 rebounds per game.
On the coaching side, Vanderbilt’s Shea Ralph seems to be the favorite for SEC Coach of the Year. Ralph has turned the Vanderbilt program around and vaulted it into national conversation in her third year as head coach. There’s still plenty of basketball to be played, but if the Commodores can finish in the top three of the league (something they haven’t done since the 2010-11 season), it would be hard to argue against Ralph for coach of the year.
Staley, who has won the award four times since 2020, is another candidate. If she can will this South Carolina team to a one-loss SEC season after all the injuries the squad has dealt with she’ll have a strong case for the honor.
South Carolina WBB’s remaining games of the 2025-26 season
- Thursday, Feb. 5 vs Mississippi State, 6:30 p.m. (SEC Network)
- Sunday, Feb. 8 vs Tennessee, 3 p.m. (ABC)
- Thursday, Feb. 14 at LSU, 8:30 p.m. (ABC)
- Thursday, Feb. 19 at Alabama, 8:30 (SEC Network)
- Sunday, Feb. 22 vs Ole Miss, 12 p.m. (ESPN/ESPN2)
- Thursday, Feb. 26 vs Missouri, 8 p.m. (SEC Network)
- Sunday, March 1 at Kentucky, 2 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- Wednesday, March 4 - Sunday, March 8: SEC Tournament in Greenville, SC
