The South Carolina women's basketball team will be seeking to make a sixth-straight Final Four during the 2026-27 season. Under head coach Dawn Staley, the Gamecocks have earned a No. 1 seed 10 times in the NCAA Tournament.
But major changes are coming to the NCAA Tournament with respect to how seeds are determined. On Monday evening, the NCAA announced that it would no longer consider a team's respective conference when ranking the 1-16 seeds. Previously, conferences were considered when seeding teams, mainly to protect them from playing each other until the Final Four round.
NEWS: Beginning 2027, the Top 16 teams in the Women’s NCAA Tournament will be seeded based on their true ranking without conference affiliation, per The Associated Press.
— E J 🏀 (@EJayArrow) July 14, 2026
But with the new rule change, the teams will be ranked one through 16 with respect to their true ranking, without any consideration for which conference that team is in.
"We put a lot of time into establishing those top 16 teams in the order they go in," NCAA women's basketball committee chair Amanda Braun said via The Associated Press of the decision. "You're splitting hairs to decide who has the edge, and some of that is undone by those principles. To all of us, the work we did and the work those teams did justifies keeping them where they are in that group of 16."
This decision also stems from the tournament expanding from 68 to 76 teams starting in 2027.
What does this change mean for Dawn Staley and South Carolina?
This change will likely have the biggest impact on the SEC, which placed 10 teams in the tournament last year. The conference also had four of the top eight overall seeds, including UConn, UCLA, Texas and the Gamecocks. But other power conferences are expected to be impacted by this change The Big Ten had a record-tying 12 teams selected into the field, with the ACC also getting nine teams in the tournament last year. The Big 12 also had eight.
So using last year's bracket as an example, South Carolina was placed in the Sacramento 4 Region as the fourth-best overall seed. Texas was third, LSU was fifth and Vanderbilt was seventh. But when it came time to place teams in their respective brackets, the LSU Tigers were dropped to seventh, with Vanderbilt going to eight to avoid the two SEC teams being in the same region.
So for example, we could see South Carolina clash with some of its biggest SEC rivals in the early rounds of nxt year's, playing teams like Texas, LSU or Ole Miss, depending on where those teams are seeded.
You can't blame the committee for previously trying to avoid having too many teams from the same conference in the same region. But expanding to 76 teams while seeing multiple teams from power-conference schools make the tournament, it became too much to continue. Not to mention, who doesn't love some inter-conference rivalry fun during the NCAA Tournament?
South Carolina is expected to have a big season in 2026, as Coach Staley returns veterans like Joyce Edwards, Chloe Kitts and Tessa Johnson. The Gamecocks also landed big-time additions in Jordan Williams from Texas and five-star guard Oliviyah Edwards, who was previously signed with Tennessee. While this change may not directly affect South Carolina's chances at a national championship, the Gamecocks will likely have to play a big conference heavyweight sooner than expected in the tournament.
The 2027 NCAA selection show will take place on March 14.
ALSO READ: Dawn Staley's reunion with former Gamecocks at Fever-Aces game is so pure
Add us as a preferred source on Google