The South Carolina Gamecocks won’t play the UConn Huskies for the first time in 12 years. Women’s basketball’s longest continuous non-conference rivalry has come to an end. The announcement has left people wondering why we won’t be seeing Dawn Staley and Geno Auriemma this season.
On a recent episode of ‘The Hoops Cap’, Tee Baker delved deep into the topic to answer people’s doubts to the best of his knowledge. Baker said he doesn’t have any conspiracy theory, but has an answer that’s logical.
“I do think that Dawn Staley probably wants to prioritize SEC play,” Baker said. “She had some complaints about the way that UCLA was selected above them in the selection show this year. And I think she was like, ‘Well, why are we going to make our schedule harder?” (From 13:20)
The Gamecocks already have a very tight schedule. Their 16-game SEC schedule is set to begin on Jan. 1 and will end on Mar. 1. The mix of eight home and eight away games is going to be exhausting for Staley and co.
“We play UConn and think that’s going to strengthen our schedule, but then you quote the loss against them as putting us down a rank,” Baker detailed Staley’s possible thought process behind this decision.
Baker also hinted at some potential tension between the two teams, but believes that since UConn is playing two extra conference games this season, they wouldn’t mind not facing South Carolina. Last year, they played 18 games; this time, they’ll play 20.
Whatever the case might be, fans are going to miss this matchup. For the last 12 consecutive years, the Gamecocks and UConn have provided fans with an incredible basketball showdown.
Dawn Staley was furious when her team wasn’t given the number 1 overall seed
In March this year, UCLA was announced as the number 1 overall seed. Even though South Carolina was one of the four regional number 1 seeds, they fell behind UCLA. Upon learning about the news, Staley was disappointed.
“My reaction? I mean, I’m not in the room,” Staley said. “Obviously, I think we did much more than probably any other overall number one seed. We outdid ourselves, even from last year, with the amount of quality wins that we had. But I guess the committee was looking at something else… Obviously, it’s disappointing. It really is.”
Staley said that she would like an explanation for the thought process that went into making that decision. At the time, she claimed that the Gamecocks had all the elements needed to be declared the number 1 seed.
However, she also stated that if there’s no such thing as playing the right way and a team can earn a number 1 seed with any kind of schedule, then she’ll make some changes to her schedule. So, the decision not to make her schedule more hectic by avoiding playing against UConn might’ve stemmed from that.
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