Sweet 16 spot on the line in South Carolina-Southern Cal WBB rematch
There’s always a chance a team will run into a familiar face with its season on the line once March Madness rolls around.
For Dawn Staley and the No. 1 seed South Carolina women’s basketball team, that game will come in the second round Monday night.
The Gamecocks are playing No. 9 seed Southern Cal with a spot in the Sweet 16 on the line. Should South Carolina beat the Trojans, the Gamecocks would travel across the country to play at least one (and possibly two) games in Sacramento.
But first, South Carolina has to get past a team it beat 69-52 in November.
The more things change, the more things stay the same
While both teams will no doubt reference the November matchup while preparing for Monday, they won’t rely exclusively on it. The matchup was just Southern Cal’s third of the season and South Carolina’s fourth, respectively.
Trojans head coach Lindsay Gottlieb feels South Carolina has “evolved” since November but that the Gamecocks “core principles” are the same.
“They’re an incredibly athletic team,” Gottlieb said. “They have dominant bigs. They like to rebound. They have an elite point guard who involves people, and then they obviously have guards who can score…Also, they’ve continued to evolve. [Madina] Okot has improved and obviously showing more range. It’s hard to believe that Joyce Edwards is only a sophomore, so she has, I think, expanded her game.”
While Gottlieb was referencing South Carolina specifically, one of her own players is the perfect example of a season’s evolution. Star freshman Jazzy Davidson was limited to just eight points against the Gamecocks in November. Davidson has since been electric all season and earned the Big Ten Freshman of the Year award after leading Southern Cal with 18 points per game.
She is also coming off a 31-point performance in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The near-career-high point total lifted Southern Cal to an overtime win over No. 8 seed Clemson.
“She’s really good,” South Carolina’s Agot Makeer said. “She can score at every single level, and she can pass and get others involved. So I think just shutting her down and making others do the work, I think is important.”
The consensus among players is that you use the film from the prior matchup to find mistakes you can fix for the rematch on Monday. Staley did just that .
“We were actually doing some pretty good stuff in that particular game that we’re working on right now to create the spacing that I don’t think we always play with,” Staley said. “We look really quick back in November, just player for player. But you can see, the treads have worn down a little bit on our players, and their players as well. You don’t see them shooting themselves out of a cannon, like every single play…we’re playing just more efficiently.”
Wendale Farrow faces his former team
Southern Cal’s team should be extra familiar for South Carolina assistant coach Wendale Farrow.
Farrow was an assistant for Gottlieb at Southern Cal from 2021-2025. Farrow was also an assistant for Gottlieb at Cal from 2016-2019 (Farrow stayed on staff for a few more seasons after her departure).
“He’s a terrific human, first and foremost, and I think just has all the right priorities in life,” Gottlieb said. “Came from a place where he had to struggle to get exactly where he is and always thinks about giving back. Had an incredible mother that was really influential in what he’s done, and I think he has a servant’s heart, does a ton of community service when nobody’s looking. And I think he’s just poured his life into women’s basketball, studies the Xs and Os and finds creative ways to relate with players, and he’s just a great guy.”
Staley said Farrow was South Carolina’s target to replace former assistant Winston Gandy last season and has done a “great job” during his first season with the Gamecocks.
Staley also confirmed Farrow is in charge of scouting Southern Cal for South Carolina.
“Obviously he’s known those players, he recruited the players there, and he knows their system extremely well,” Staley said. “A lot of times coaches don’t want the scout of the team that they came from, and he relished in the fact that he wanted it. He wanted us to just be ahead of it. I don’t even think he really knew that -- he probably did know that they were on the schedule as well, but it’s really cool to have someone that was in the room with them last year, that knows about the highs and the lows and creating an edge for us to win the game.”
This story was originally published March 23, 2026 at 7:00 AM.
