Where Dawn Staley, South Carolina stand in SEC race as regular season winds down
South Carolina women’s basketball has all but locked up another SEC regular season title and the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament after its win over LSU this past weekend.
The 79-72 win moved Dawn Staley and the No. 3 Gamecocks to 25-2 (11-1 SEC) on the year and strengthened its grasp on the top spot in the SEC standings.
There’s still basketball to be played — South Carolina has four games left in the regular season — but all things point towards a fifth-straight conference title for the Gamecocks.
Let’s take a quick look at the state of the SEC with two weeks remaining in the regular season:
Diving into the SEC standings
Here are the SEC standings as of Tuesday:
- 1) South Carolina: 11-1
- 2) Vanderbilt: 10-3
- 3) Texas: 9-3
- 4) Tennessee: 8-3
- 5) LSU: 8-4
- 6) Ole Miss: 7-4
- 7) Oklahoma: 7-5
- 8) Kentucky: 7-6
- 9) Alabama: 6-6
- 10) Georgia: 6-6
- 11) Mississippi State: 5-7
- 12) Missouri: 4-8
- 13) Florida: 3-9
- 14) Texas A&M: 3-9
- 15) Auburn: 2-10
- 16) Arkansas: 0-12
South Carolina sits atop the SEC with just one conference loss. The Gamecocks currently have a 1.5-game lead over second play Vanderbilt and a 2-game lead over third place Texas. Georgia inadvertently helped South Carolina on Sunday by upsetting Vanderbilt. The Commodores now have three losses in conference play.
As of Tuesday, South Carolina’s stronghold on the top spot makes the SEC somewhat of a race for second place. Vanderbilt and Texas are likely to win out, and if that happens, the Commodores would get the No. 2 seed thanks to a tiebreaker earned with a win over the Longhorns last week.
It’s still possible for the Lady Vols to end up as the No. 2 seed, but they would likely need to win each of their five remaining games and hope for Texas and Vanderbilt to stumble along the way. That will be no small feat, as Tennessee still has to play Ole Miss (Tuesday), Oklahoma, LSU and Vanderbilt.
As per usual, a game or two will make the difference when it comes to the middle of the pack in the final SEC standings.
The road forward for South Carolina
Here are South Carolina’s remaining regular season games.
- 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)
Staley and the Gamecocks are expected to win each of those games relatively handedly.
Analytics site BartTorvik.com has South Carolina as double-digit favorites in each of its final four games. The biggest spread is against Missouri (USC is a 34.4-point favorite), while the smallest is against Kentucky (10.2-point favorite).
South Carolina has already played Alabama once this season. The Gamecocks beat the Crimson Tide at home 83-57. ESPN’s College GameDay will be in town for South Carolina’s matchup with No. 17 Ole Miss and senior day will be against Mizzou.
Alabama, Ole Miss and Kentucky are all ranked and could give South Carolina a run for its money. The Gamecocks are 6-2 against ranked teams this season and have won those games by an average of 16.8 points. Granted, that average is slightly skewed by a 29-point win over Vanderbilt and a 43-point win over Tennessee.
The hardest of the final matchups South Carolina has will likely be on the road at Kentucky. The No. 16 Wildcats have been inconsistent but have wins over LSU and Oklahoma and were ranked as high as No. 6 this season.
South Carolina may already have a regular season title and No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament (and NCAA Tournament, for that matter) locked up by the time they travel to Lexington. But, it’s still possible for the Wildcats to play spoiler. ESPN lists the March 1 matchup as one of its 10 most impactful games to finish the regular season.
It seems unlikely, but if the Gamecocks lose one (or more) games to close out the season they still have some wiggle room in the standings. South Carolina has crucial tiebreakers over Vanderbilt, Texas, Tennessee and LSU, which would allow it to hold on to the No. 1 spot a bit longer following a loss.
This story was originally published February 17, 2026 at 1:04 PM.
