USC women’s basketball wins another SEC title. When will the Gamecocks celebrate?
When Dawn Staley was hired as South Carolina’s head women’s basketball coach in 2008, the program was at a low point.
The Gamecocks had made the NCAA Tournament just five times in the previous 20 seasons and had finished with a winning record in less than half of those years.
Over the 18 years since that April day when Staley was introduced as South Carolina’s head coach, she’s built the program into a winning one. She’s won more than 500 games, nine SEC tournament titles and three national championships.
All that winning made for plenty of banners to hang in the rafters of Colonial Life Arena. On Sunday, Staley’s team secured one more.
No. 3 South Carolina beat then-No. 17 Ole Miss 85-48 to secure at least a share of the Gamecocks’ SEC regular season title. It’s the fifth consecutive season the Gamecocks (27-2, 13-1 SEC) have accomplished the feat. South Carolina shared the title with Texas last season but won it outright the three years before that.
South Carolina injuries, lineup shuffles
South Carolina has dealt with injuries and shuffling lineups all year long — or as star guard Ta’Niya Latson puts it: “a lot of trials and tribulations” — so while winning has become the status quo at USC, this league title carried some extra weight for Staley.
“I think it means a little bit more, because this league is so hard. And just the competitive nature of it, to have two games remaining and you know you’re going to share at least part of a championship, a regular season championship, in this climate,” Staley said. “Just super proud of our players for just being able to compete and win at the highest level in this league.”
The title South Carolina clinched Sunday was more than just its fifth in a row though. With the win, the Gamecocks have now won 10 of the last 13 SEC regular-season championships.
Normally, a feat like that would be some cause for celebration. When the game was over Sunday afternoon, however, confetti didn’t drop from the ceiling at Colonial Life Arena. Sure, a nice graphic was displayed on the Jumbotron declaring USC as SEC champs, but Staley and her team went about their business as usual.
“Raven (Johnson) was on the bench, she was like, ‘Yeah, this is my fifth one.’ And I’m like, ‘Dang, must be nice.’ It’s just the standard here,” Latson said. “That’s something that comes naturally for this program. And so just being able to kind of blend in and act like I’ve been here before, even though I haven’t, it’s something that I try my best to do. But, yeah, I’m happy. Shoot, I celebrated.”
How USC women’s hoops can win SEC title outright
South Carolina still needs one more win to claim the title outright. The Gamecocks are double-digit favorites in its final two games: against Missouri at home and on the road at Kentucky, according to analytics site BartTorvik.com. If USC gets that last win, Staley assured there will be some sort of celebration.
“It’s cool when you share it, but not really. So we want to win it outright,” Staley said. “So it takes one more win for us to do that. And hopefully we can get that done on Thursday. We’ll make sure, we’ll jump around, because it’s an incredible feat in this conference.”
South Carolina’s win Sunday made it one of just two programs in the SEC to win at least 10 regular season championships. Tennessee is the all-time leader with 18 regular-season titles. Could the 2008 version of Staley have ever imagined she’d be the architect of 10 regular season titles in the span of 13 years?
No, she said Sunday.
“I don’t even think the SEC was part of the process of — I think I probably skipped a few steps,” Staley said. “The regular season, the SEC tournament, to, like, winning national championships. But I do think this has been the training ground to success outside of the SEC.
“So no, because it’s really super competitive that you don’t want to put the cart before the horse. You just want to win the next game. Winning five SEC regular-season championships consecutively, to me, is unheard of. It’s almost like an out-of-body experience, because you never – I wouldn’t say, I imagine us losing five consecutive either.”
Dawn Staley credits her players for team’s success
Staley gave a lot of credit to her players for being willing to “sacrifice some of your individual success for the overall team,” over the years to secure those championships. Latson is the latest in a long line of examples. She led the nation in scoring (25.2 ppg) at Florida State last year but opted for a smaller scoring role (14.8 pp this year with USC) to reunite with her high school teammate Raven Johnson in pursuit of a title.
“Coming here, I know the standard at South Carolina is, you know, the standard,” Latson said. “Being able to play around other great players and being coached by Dawn Staley, it just means a lot. This is something that’s going to help me in the WNBA… I’m just blessed and thankful to be here.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2026 at 11:53 AM.
