South Carolina Basketball: SEC Champions Once Again, Gamecocks Have Eyes on a Bigger Prize

For the seventh time in ten seasons, the South Carolina basketball team is the regular season SEC women’s basketball champion. In a game in which the Gamecocks came out extremely flat, the team rallied and dominated the final three quarters en route to yet another double-digit victory.

Zia Cooke led the way offensively, Aliyah Boston played her usual stellar defense, and the supporting cast of Brea Beal, Kamilla Cardoso, and Kierra Fletcher played their roles to perfection down the stretch. The Gamecocks’ 34th-straight victory proves their dominance as they beat a twenty-win program on the road by a score of 73-60 despite not playing close to their best game.

This regular season title is insignificant, however, compared to the goals the South Carolina basketball program has for itself. After a bitter defeat in the conference tournament championship game last season at the hands of Kentucky, the immediate focus will soon shift to reclaiming the tournament title they unexpectedly lost last season.

A national title is a clear goal every season for a program the caliber of Dawn Staley’s team. Winning consecutive championships would vault the Gamecocks into rarified air, as only Southern Cal, Tennessee, and UConn have accomplished the feat.

Then comes perfection. One last regular season game at home against Georgia, three SEC Tournament contests, and six matchups in The Dance stand between them and perfection. Only UConn, Tennessee, Baylor, and Texas have ever gone undefeated.

While achieving these goals will not be an easy task, the sheer brilliance of Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks is seen in the fact that achieving these goals still seems like the most likely outcome. A juggernaut on par with the best teams women’s college basketball has ever seen, this year’s South Carolina Gamecocks seem to be unstoppable. When they play well, they crush opponents with their defensive might while scoring at will. When they play poorly (by their standards), they still win as their overall talent level and sheer size make them impossible to hold down for long.

Congratulations are in order for the 2022-2023 SEC regular season champion Gamecocks, but no one associated with the program will care. They are too busy focusing on the challenges that lie ahead, and any team that gets in their way will meet sure destruction. An SEC title is nice, but for the best women’s college basketball program in the country, it is just the beginning of their journey.