Staley, Gamecocks release complete schedule for upcoming season

What’s a few more tough teams?

Dawn Staley dodged nobody in scheduling her non-conference schedule and the SEC, which became stronger over the offseason, offers no relief. South Carolina will play 10 games against teams that finished last year in the Top 25 and 21 games against postseason teams from a year ago.

The Gamecocks will open their SEC schedule on Jan. 3 by hosting Arkansas, which made the NCAA tournament last year, and end on Feb. 28 by hosting LSU, which also made the NCAAs. In between they’ll play Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Kentucky two times each, with the last two making the NCAAs last year.

USC is trying to improve the phenomenal success of its last two years, as hard as it will be to do. A regular season-concluding loss at Kentucky last year denied the Gamecocks a perfect SEC season, but preserved the chance that Staley can keep improving her SEC record in each year of her tenure. A 16-0 record is still attainable.

Staley has guided her team to a combined 29-3 SEC record over the past two years, winning back-to-back regular-season championships.

USC’s toughest stretch looks to be from Jan. 31 to Feb. 15. The Gamecocks will play at Texas A&M, then return home to host Kentucky. After that comes a home game against rebuilding Florida before concluding at Tennessee.

In the middle, on Feb. 8, is the Gamecocks’ final non-conference game -- hosting defending national champion Connecticut.