Dawn Staley and the South Carolina women's basketball team now knows what it has to do to win a sixth-straight SEC title this season. On Tuesday, the Gamecocks' full SEC schedule was released, and it includes some big road tests.
After opening the SEC season by hosting Alabama at home, the Gamecocks will go on the road to Texas on Jan. 3. The Longhorns were the only team to defeat the Gamecocks twice last season, both during the regular season and in the SEC Tournament. Also in January, South Carolina will face another team that beat the Gamecocks last season in Oklahoma. South Carolina plays the Sooners at home on Jan. 14, and plays Oklahoma in Norman on Feb. 8.
South Carolina opens the month of February with a road trip to Vanderbilt on Feb. 4, taking on a Commodores team that was a No. 2 seed in last year's NCAA Tournament. Vanderbilt fell to Notre Dame in the Sweet 16 last season. Staley and the Gamecocks will go on the road against Ole Miss on Feb. 14.
Before closing out their SEC regular season on the road against Georgia on Feb. 28, South Carolina will host LSU and Auburn at home on Feb. 21 and 25, respectively. Here's a look at the Gamecocks' full SEC schedule:
- December 31: vs Alabama
- January 3: at Texas
- January 7: at Mississippi State
- January 10: vs Arkansas
- January 14: vs Oklahoma
- January 17: at Missouri
- January 21: vs Florida
- January 28: at Tennessee
- January 31: vs Kentucky
- February 4: at Vanderbilt
- February 8: at Oklahoma
- February 11: vs Texas A&M
- February 14: at Ole Miss
- February 21: vs LSU
- February 25: vs Auburn
- February 28: at Georgia
Our @SEC schedule is 11ocked in!
— South Carolina Women's Basketball (@GamecockWBB) August 11, 2026
📰: https://t.co/FqgeOrkw9O pic.twitter.com/DrRhT2hiu3
The SEC Tournament will be held March 3-7 in Greenville, S.C. before the NCAA Tournament action begins.
"I mean, this is a hard league," Coach Staley said of playing in the SEC during last season's conference tournament. "When we came to the SEC 18 years ago, coached in the A-10 for eight years, we came here for just this, to play against the best, to coach against the best, to try to outfox the other coaches down the sideline.
"I didn't think it was going to be this hard. Because it's incredibly hard. It's not for the faint at heart. But to do it in the fashion that we've done it, you got to give it up to our players. In this climate, especially, we don't have a brand of basketball that, to me, if you're not really a basketball enthusiast, if you're not willing to sacrifice and hear the hard truths, that's not popular. It's not popular."
South Carolina plays Maryland on Nov. 2 in Paris, with a full 2026-27 regular-season schedule for the Gamecocks expected to be revealed in the coming weeks. The Gamecocks are expected to be one of the best teams in the SEC and in the country. Coach Staley returns star players in Chloe Kitts, Joyce Edwards and Tessa Johnson from last season. South Carolina also brought in new faces in Jordan Lee from Texas and former Tennessee signee Oliviyah Edwards.
Under Coach Staley, the Gamecocks have won 10 regular-season SEC titles.
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