Revamped approach has No. 1 Gamecocks aiming for ending the season No. 1
· Yahoo Sports
Oct. 30—COLUMBIA — It's in a place where there isn't a lot to work on. Even with nearly half the team being newcomers and two more returning after season-long absences last year.
But Dawn Staley could never be satisfied despite leading South Carolina to the top of the sport and becoming one of the most consistently great programs in the game's history. Just since 2021, the Gamecocks have reached six straight Final Fours and have appeared in the last three national championship games.
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The Gamecocks did not win the last two. And the last one ...
Staley thought she saw a reason.
"I think mental fatigue, physical fatigue has something to do with it. And then I thought that especially our top players logged a lot of minutes," she said. "We got to create more opportunities for us to have a lot more depth. We are pretty successful when we have depth."
Last season, while again tremendously successful, was littered with so many injuries that the Gamecocks only had 6-8 players any given night, and only two played every game. Starter Chloe Kitts and sixth woman Ashlyn Watkins were gone before the season ever started. There were enough dings and knocks to the others that barely anyone was unaffected.
Yet they still reached the last game of the season. Hold it together for 40 more minutes and they're national champs for the fourth time in the past nine attempts.
UCLA, a senior-laden squad, was not going to let that happen. The Bruins blew the game wide-open from the tip and cruised to the title.
Sometimes, you just get beat. That happened in 2025, when another stellar USC team was turned inside-out by Connecticut for the title. It was the same UConn team that had blown USC's doors off in a regular-season game in Columbia weeks earlier.
This time, Staley detected something else.
Perhaps she and the team got a little too "up" for winning the game before, a semifinal rematch against UConn, that they had nothing left for the championship game. She couldn't characterize UCLA as a one-off because the same thing happened in the SEC Tournament championship game — the Gamecocks were so geeked up to beat LSU in the semifinal that they had nothing left for Texas, which helps explain why the Longhorns smoked USC in Greenville.
"And them understanding that, as much as we talk about it, it's not a real thing until it really happens to them. I'm encouraged that we all understand it. We just have to get through it. It's got to happen to you," Staley said. "Whatever it is, whatever the highs and lows of a season, you must experience them in order for you to get stronger and understand."
Staley's immediate fix was to institute practices that lasted a bit longer. Throughout the year will be mentions of mental health, about separating from the game a bit and thinking, preparing, readying for the next.
"Yeah, it was a lot. And people were in and out. People were injured. So we kind of had a short bench," forward Joyce Edwards said. "But I feel like it definitely plays into it, especially when you're playing from November all the way to April. So, I mean, it does it to you."
It's the consequence of winning so much so many years in a row that the Gamecocks are expected to win every game. Staley, with a replenished roster (only two of the 15 are expected to play next-to-nothing minutes), has lined up an extremely aggressive non-conference schedule and her team has already been anointed No. 1 in the preseason, atop the rankings and the SEC predictions.
But the goalposts have moved, especially after the last two seasons. It's a dream for almost every team to play for a national championship. USC has seen it become the norm, since the Gamecocks are at a place where they're far beyond being satisfied with just having a great season. And losing that game doesn't reflect on what a journey it was to get there — it only becomes that they lost.
Mentality needs to be strong in any walk of life. Making the team's mentality championship-or-bust and seeing it met is Staley's next goal.
South Carolina Gamecocks
2025-26 record: 36-4, 15-1 SEC
Postseason: NCAA Tournament Runner-Up
Coach: Dawn Staley (683-194, 27th season; 511-114 USC, 19th season)
Key losses: PG Raven Johnson (9.8 ppg, 4.0 rpg); G Ta'Niya Latson (14.1 ppg, 2.9 rpg); C Madina Okot (12.8 ppg, 10.6 rpg)
Key returnees: F Joyce Edwards (19.2 ppg, 6.8 rpg); G Tessa Johnson (12.8 ppg, 3.4 rpg); F Chloe Kitts (10.2 ppg, 7.7 rpg in 2024-25)
Top newcomers: G Jordan Lee (Texas, 13.2 ppg, 2.5 rpg); G Jerzy Robinson (freshman)
Key games: Nov. 15—vs. Southern Cal; Nov. 24—vs. Connecticut; Jan. 3—at Texas; Feb. 4—at Vanderbilt; Feb. 21—LSU
2026-27 Schedule
NOVEMBER
2—vs. Maryland (Paris), noon; 8—vs. North Carolina (Charlotte), 5:30 p.m.; 12—at Clemson, 7 p.m.; 15—vs. Southern Cal (Greenville), 1 p.m.; 17—Florida Gulf Coast, 7 p.m.; 21—at Providence, 1:30 p.m.; 24—vs. Connecticut, 8 p.m. (Uncasville, Conn.); 28—Tennessee State, 2:30 p.m.; 29—N.C. Central OR Alabama A&M, noon OR 2:30 p.m.
DECEMBER
3—at Duke, 7 p.m.; 6—Oklahoma State, 4 p.m.; 12—Wofford, noon.; 16—Albany, 7 p.m.; 19—vs. UCLA, 8:30 p.m.;# 20—vs. Notre Dame, 7:30 p.m.;# 28—Gardner-Webb, 6 p.m.; 31—Alabama, 7 p.m.
JANUARY
3—at Texas, 3 p.m.;* 7—at Mississippi State, 7 p.m.;* 10—Arkansas, 4 p.m.;* 14—Oklahoma, 7:30 p.m.;* 17—at Missouri, 4 p.m.;* 21—Florida, 7 p.m.;* 28—at Tennessee, 6:30 p.m.;* 31—Kentucky,* 3 p.m.
FEBRUARY
4—at Vanderbilt, 7 p.m.;* 8—at Oklahoma, 7 p.m.;* 11—Texas A&M, 6 p.m.;* 14—at Ole Miss, 1 p.m.;* 21—LSU, 3 p.m.;* 25—Auburn, 7 p.m.;* 28—at Georgia, noon*
MARCH
3-7—SEC Tournament (Greenville)
#Players Era Championship (Las Vegas)
*SEC
Follow David Cloninger on Twitter at @DCPandC
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