WOMEN’S BASKETBALL GAMEDAY
NO. 11 UCONN AT NO. 1 SOUTH CAROLINA
When: Sunday at 2 p.m.
Where: Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, S.C.
Records: UConn (20-4, 12-0 Big East) South Carolina (22-0, 10-0 SEC)
TV: ESPN
Radio: UConn Sports Network, WAVZNew Haven (1300 AM), WGCH- Greenwich (1490 AM), WATR-Waterbury (1320 AM), WICH-Norwich (1310 AM, 94.5 FM), WILI-Willimantic (1400 AM, 95.3 FM), Fox Sports 97.9 FM Hartford, SiriusXM-983, SXM App 973
KEEP AN EYE ON Tough test: UConn women's basketball's final nonconference opponent will be its hardest test this season.
The No. 11 Huskies travel to Columbia Sunday (2 p.m. on ESPN) to face No. 1 South Carolina. UConn is not only looking to give the Gamecocks their first loss of the year, but the Huskies are out to prove they can still compete with the nation's best.
Sunday's matchup will be UConn's last chance to send a message to the NCAA selection committee and prove to the AP Top 25 voters that it deserves to be ranked among the top teams. The NCAA will release the first of two early Top 16 seed reveals next Thursday (bracket positions for if the season ended next week). While a UConn loss this weekend wouldn't change the Huskies' position, an upset win over South Carolina would bump them up into the top-10 ranked teams.
“Everything's in perspective going down to play,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said Wednesday. “I think we know what we're up against. We know who they are and what they can do, what they've done. And I know our guys are excited to go down and play for sure. And the NCAA Tournament is going to start in a month-and-a-half … and unless they lose, nobody's really going to remember that we went down there and played.”
Rivalry renewed: The UConn and South Carolina series has become a heated rivalry. Two deeply talented and high-profile programs featuring star players and star coaches. Both Auriemma and Dawn Staley hail from Philadelphia and have ties to the University of Virginia.
Auriemma was an assistant coach at UVA from 1981 to 1985 before moving to Connecticut and taking over UConn. Staley enrolled at UVA in 1988 and was a star point guard for the Cavaliers through the 1991-1992 season.
Staley, along with then UVA-teammate
and current UConn assistant coach Tonya Cardoza, upset UConn in the 1991 Final Four, 61-55, to advance to the program's first ever appearance in the title game. The Cavaliers lost the national championship in overtime to Tennessee.
South Carolina has won four of its last five meetings with UConn, including handing the Huskies' their first-ever loss in the national championship game in 2022.
About South Carolina: The Gamecocks held the No. 1 ranking all last season and nearly finished the year undefeated before falling in the Final Four to national championship runner-up Iowa. Former star forward Aliyah Boston was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever and won the league's Rookie of the Year award last season.
This year, South Carolina hasn't missed a beat. The Gamecocks were ranked No. 6 to start the 2023-24 season but after both UConn and LSU lost in the opening week, the Gamecocks jumped up to the top spot and haven't fallen since.
The Gamecocks are the last standing unbeaten team this season and are beating opponents by an average of 35.0 points per game. South Carolina is ranked No. 2 in the nation in field goal percentage at 51.42 percent(UConn is No. 3 with a 51.35 percent).
What makes Sunday's game interesting, however, is South Carolina will be without star center and leading scorer Kamilla Cardoso as she's currently away from the team competing for Brazil
in FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Belgium. She will return to Columbia once the tournament concludes next week.
South Carolina will also likely be without freshman forward Sahnya Jah on Sunday. Staley told the media on Thursday that Jah is suspended indefinitely for “conduct detrimental to the team.”
On Thursday, South Carolina defeated Missouri 83-45 in Columbia. Series history: Last year, the Gamecocks beat UConn in Hartford 81-77 and the last time they hosted UConn in South Carolina, they won 70-52. The last time the Huskies won in Columbia was on Feb. 1, 2018, 83-58.
UConn leads the all-time series 9-4.