It took until late November for the South Carolina Gamecocks to lose their first game of the college basketball season. Then-No. 5 UCLA snapped their 43-game winning streak.
They bounced back in a big way with 17 consecutive wins to take their record to a whopping 22-1. That included wins over ranked teams like LSU, Tennessee, Alabama, TCU, Duke, Texas, Oklahoma, and Iowa State before a loss to Texas.
That’s why, judging by their record, the quality of their wins, and their stats, legendary coach Dawn Staley has no doubt in her mind that her team will be the No. 1 seed come March Madness.
Dawn Staley is sure the Gamecocks will get the No. 1 seed
“We’re going to be the overall number one seed. It’s really simple,” Staley said. “It’s not the new math. The new math may have us second, third or fourth or maybe a two-seed. But the old original math with the body of work, the schedule that we put together, the Quad One wins, the strength of schedule, the NET. If you add all those metrics together, nobody has the body of work we have.”
Head coach Dawn Staley of the South Carolina Gamecocks
Of course, she also knows her team hasn’t been perfect this season. As much as she would love to forget that game, she still can’t stop thinking about the loss to UConn.
Coach Staley is still thinking about the loss to UConn
“You can look at the three losses and you can say the Connecticut loss was an embarrassing loss, and it was. But how we responded to each and every loss, I think, shows the type of team that we are,” Staley said.
The Huskies handed them their worst loss of the season, an 87-58 defeat to end their 71-game winning streak at home. However, they’ve now won ten in a row since that loss, including three in the SEC Tournament.
