Thanksgiving tournament added to South Carolina basketball schedule

South Carolina basketball coaches Dawn Staley and Lamont Paris have been working this offseason to finalize their 2024-2025 schedules. In addition to the SEC schedule and the annual rivalry games against the Clemson Tigers, there will be a little more overlap between the women's and men's games this season.

On Wednesday, it was announced that Staley's team will play in the Fort Myers Tip-Off in late November. Coach Paris' group will play on the men's side of the Fort Myers Tip-Off earlier in the same week, meaning South Carolina basketball fans will have a week full of basketball to watch around the Thanksgiving holiday.

In the announcement from Gamecocksonline.com, the Gamecocks' opponents in the Tip-Off also were revealed. USC will face off against the Iowa State Cyclones and Purdue Boilermakers. As part of the "Island Division" of the event (the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders are the 4th), USC-ISU will be played on Thursday, November 28th (Thanksgiving), and Carolina and Purdue will take the floor together on Saturday, November 30th. All games will be played at Florida Southwestern State College.

Iowa State made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season, while Purdue played its way into the third round of the women's NIT. Iowa State should be an improving group in the Big 12, while Purdue is expected to be a middle-of-the-road Big 10 team.

Other out-of-conference games that have been announced (in addition to the Clemson rivalry and the Fort Myers Tip-Off) include the Hall of Fame Series season opener in Las Vegas against the Michigan Wolverines (Monday, November 4th), another neutral site game in the Ally Tip-Off in Charlotte against the NC State Wolfpack (Sunday, November 10th), a road trip to Los Angeles to play the UCLA Bruins (Sunday, November 24th), and the ACC/SEC Challenge contest against Duke at Colonial Life Arena (Thursday, December 5th).