Dawn Staley's South Carolina basketball team learns ACC/SEC Challenge draw

On Wednesday, the South Carolina basketball team learned their draw for the 2024-2025 ACC/SEC Challenge. According to a release from the University, the Gamecocks will match up with the Duke Blue Devils on December 5th at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia. The Challenge will take place on Wednesday, December 4th and Thursday, December 5th.

Playing Duke for the second year in a row (last year, Coach Staley's team beat Kara Lawson's squad in the Jimmy V Classic), Carolina adds another tough game to their already tough schedule. A win over the Blue Devils would finish the Gamecocks' sweep of the biggest rivals in college basketball in the ACC/SEC Challenge as USC beat the North Carolina Tar Heels in the Challenge last season.

After a down stretch for the proud program, Lawson has rebuilt Duke into an NCAA Tournament team the past two years, and the Blue Devils have gone 48-19 in those seasons. They won one game in the 2022-2023 NCAA Tournament and two games in the 2023-2024 version of March Madness.

The Gamecocks, on the other hand, are the favorites to win another National Championship. While Duke has lost 19 games the past two years, Carolina has lost just 19 games total since the start of the 2018-2019 season.

The game against the Blue Devils is one of several known non-conference contests on the 2024-2025 South Carolina basketball schedule.

Coach Staley and the Gamecocks have also scheduled their season opener against the Michigan Wolverines in a neutral site game in Las Vegas as part of the Hall of Fame Series. The annual rivalries against the Clemson Tigers and UConn Huskies are, as always, on the docket, and a road trip out west to face the UCLA Bruins (another top-5 team) is also part of the schedule this season.