Why Dawn Staley says it’s important for Gamecocks to play UConn every year
When you think of the history of women’s college basketball, Geno Auriemma and UConn might be the first thing to come to your mind. Granted, there’s also the likes of Pat Summitt and Tennessee.
And Dawn Staley and South Carolina have certainly fought their way into that conversation over the last decade as well.
Still, the success Auriemma has had with the Huskies — 1,235 wins and 11 national championships — is unmatched and remains the standard for what women’s basketball programs aim to be.
Just ask Staley.
“I think we built our program based on the standard. UConn is (and) was the standard in our sport,” Staley said on her “Carolina Calls” radio show Tuesday. “If you play them long enough, you’ll figure out some nuances to help you win. If you can beat UConn, you can beat anybody.”
South Carolina and UConn have played 14 times in the respective programs’ histories. All but one of the meetings came with Staley leading the Gamecocks.
UConn leads the all-time series 9-5, but Staley and the Gamecocks have had the upper hand as of late. In the early years, though, it was all UConn. The Huskies won the first seven matchups against Staley-led teams by an average of 21 points and by as many as 29 points twice.
Still, Staley kept UConn on the schedule as a barometer of sorts.
“That’s what we were just kind of measuring ourselves up against every year,” Staley said on the radio show. “We took those lopsided losses, 30-point losses, 20-point losses, 12-point losses. Then we get to a place where now we’re winning.”
South Carolina is currently on a four-game win streak against UConn and has won five of the last six matchups. The first win over UConn in program history came during the 2019-20 season when the Gamecocks won 70-52 at Colonial Life Arena.
After an overtime loss in Storrs, Connecticut the next season, South Carolina started that four-game series win streak in November of the 2021-22 season with a 73-57 road victory.
The biggest of those four wins came in April 2022 when South Carolina clinched its second national championship in program history with a 64-49 win over UConn.
“It’s a really good thing. You can etch your place in the history of our game because you’ve played them so much over the years, and you’re winning,” Staley said on “Carolina Calls.” “So it puts you in a really good place to win a national championship when you’re measuring yourself against the standard.”
This year’s South Carolina-UConn game will be the second in a row held in Columbia. The teams typically alternate venues but the 2022 matchup, set for Colonial Life Arena, was canceled so South Carolina could make up an SEC game postponed by COVID-19. This year’s meeting in Columbia will make up for that cancellation.
Sunday’s matchup is the last addendum to the original South Carolina-UConn game contract, meaning there’ll need to be another renewal of that agreement in order to keep the series going for future years.
South Carolina schedule: Next four games
Thursday: vs. Florida, 7 p.m. (SEC Network)
Sunday: vs. UConn, 1 p.m. (ABC)
Feb. 20: vs. Arkansas, 7 p.m. (SEC Network)
Feb. 23: at Vanderbilt, 3 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 12:38 PM with the headline "Why Dawn Staley says it’s important for Gamecocks to play UConn every year."
