TAMPA, Fla. — For the 39th and final time in the 2024-25 season, it is game day for South Carolina women’s basketball.
South Carolina takes on UConn at 3 p.m. ET on ABC in the National Championship game, looking to complete a successful back-to-back run and win the program’s fourth National Championship in the last eight tournaments.
The season started with two neutral court wins over Michigan and NC State in Las Vegas, wound through three regular season losses to UCLA, Texas and UConn, featured a five-game winning streak over ranked opponents and earned South Carolina another No. 1 seed. The Gamecocks reached their fifth consecutive Final Four and beat Texas 74-57 Friday to reach Sunday’s title game.
Before the Gamecocks and Huskies tip fhere is a look back at South Carolina’s entire season with game coverage, features and more over the last 153 days since the season opener.
South Carolina started the season with two who went on to spend time ranked in the top-25 and win at least one NCAA Tournament Game, sneaking past Michigan 68-62 in Las Vegas and beating NC State 71-57 in a Final Four rematch in Charlotte. Later on in non-conference play the Gamecocks had three of their better offensive games of the season against three more tournament teams and two which made the Elite Eight, steamrolling Iowa State 76-36, beating Duke 81-70 in the SEC-ACC challenge and winning 85-52 at TCU.
Michigan: No Cardoso and a lot of questions for Gamecocks: ‘That presence is missing‘
NC State: South Carolina WBB finds ‘hot hand’ against NC State, pulls away 71-57
Iowa State: South Carolina bounces back, beats Iowa State 76-36 after early 32-0 run
Duke: South Carolina gets another top-10 win, finds more ‘reliable’ offense
TCU: South Carolina women’s basketball thumps TCU 85-52 in top-10 showdown
On Jan. 5 in just the second game of SEC play, South Carolina lost a major contributor for the season. Junior forward Ashlyn Watkins went down in the second quarter holding her knee, and two days later the program confirmed she suffered a season-ending ACL tear.
Gamecocks pull away from MSU 95-68, but Watkins leaves with injury
Ashlyn Watkins out for season with torn ACL
Breaking down solutions for South Carolina WBB without Ashlyn Watkins
For the first time since 2020-21, South Carolina lost more than one regular season game. Three, in fact, two in blowout fashion. The Gamecocks lost in blowout fashion against UCLA and UConn, and were on the wrong end of a four-point decision at Texas. The UConn loss was the program’s heaviest margin of defeat in a home game since 2008.
UCLA: South Carolina WBB winning streak snapped in 77-62 loss at UCLA
Texas: South Carolina WBB is still elite, but one problem is not going away
UConn: What comes next for South Carolina after ‘major implosion’ against UConn?
South Carolina entered the final game of the regular season needing a win over Kentucky in a top-15 match-up to secure another SEC regular season championship. It was a one-point game midway through the fourth quarter, but the Gamecocks pulled away for a 78-66. That meant a coin flip with Texas to determine the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament, which the Gamecocks won.
After that the Gamecocks blitzed through the SEC Tournament, beating Vanderbilt behindcareer-high 25 points from Chloe Kitts, Oklahoma thanks to an offensive explosion and Texas off the back of a dominant defensive perforance with just 14 points allowed in the first half to capture a third consecutive conference tournament title.
It was an uneven tournament, but South Carolina ultimately made it back to the National Championship Game. After blowing out Tennessee Tech behind a 70 percent shooting performance, the Gamecocks trailed by at least seven points in each of their wins over Indiana, Maryland, Duke and Texas. The middle two games in particular were dicey, as South Carolina found itself trailing Maryland with under three minutes to play and needing a stop in the final 10 seconds against Duke to preserve a two-point lead.
First round vs. Tennessee Tech
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