February 18, 2026
The madness of March is almost here, and for Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball program, the picture is coming into sharp focus. With Selection Sunday less than a month away, the conversation has shifted from whether the Gamecocks belong among the nation’s elite to something far more pointed — where exactly they land in the bracket, and what obstacles stand between them and another national championship run.
Riding High Into March
South Carolina’s case for a top seed in the NCAA Tournament received a massive boost last weekend in Baton Rouge. The Gamecocks, now 25-2 overall and 11-1 in the SEC, marched into the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Valentine’s Day and walked out with a convincing 79-72 victory over then-No. 6 LSU, a win that resonated far beyond the final score. It was the kind of road triumph on a nationally televised stage — with ESPN’s College GameDay watching — that selection committees and bracketology analysts take note of come tournament time.
And they have indeed taken note.
Creme’s Projection: Third Overall, Fort Worth Bound
ESPN’s foremost bracketology authority, Charlie Creme, released his latest NCAA Tournament projection Tuesday morning, and South Carolina is firmly planted on the top line. The Gamecocks are one of his four projected No. 1 seeds — slotted third overall behind UConn and UCLA — a placement that aligns almost perfectly with the NCAA Tournament selection committee’s own first Top 16 reveal, released the prior Saturday. That kind of consistency between an independent projection and the committee’s internal rankings is not coincidental; it signals that South Carolina’s résumé is being viewed as elite by every relevant evaluator in the sport.
Under Creme’s current bracket, the Gamecocks would host the first and second rounds of the tournament right at home in Columbia, South Carolina — a significant home-court advantage — before the road would take them to Fort Worth, Texas, for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, should they advance that far. The two regional sites for this year’s NCAA Tournament are Fort Worth and Sacramento.
The Fort Worth Region: Old Enemies and Potential Landmines
Here is where things get genuinely interesting for Gamecocks fans. Creme’s projected Fort Worth 3 Region is populated with teams South Carolina has already faced — or will face — during the regular season. Of the teams currently slotted in that bracket, five share schedule overlap with the Gamecocks: No. 8 seed Southern Cal, No. 5 seed Ole Miss, No. 12 seed Clemson, No. 7 seed Georgia, and No. 2 seed Louisville.
That familiarity cuts both ways. On one hand, South Carolina would enter any of those potential matchups with existing game film and firsthand knowledge of their opponents’ tendencies. On the other, those same teams would know exactly what the Gamecocks do — and have had months to scheme accordingly.
Columbia: The Fortress First
As the projected No. 1 seed, South Carolina would open tournament play on the most favorable possible terms — inside Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, where the Gamecocks have built one of the most intimidating home environments in all of women’s college basketball.
Their projected first-round opponent, according to Creme’s bracket, would be the winner of a First Four play-in game between No. 16 seeds Howard and Eastern Kentucky — a matchup few expect to trouble a Gamecocks squad of this caliber. Assuming South Carolina handles that opening round in expected fashion, they would then face the winner of No. 8 Southern Cal versus No. 9 Villanova in the Round of 32, still in the comfort of Columbia.
The Clemson Wildcard
Perhaps the most intriguing subplot buried within Creme’s Fort Worth Region is the possibility of an all-South Carolina Sweet 16 matchup. The Tigers from Clemson are currently projected as a No. 12 seed — a line historically fertile for upsets — and their path to a potential date with the Gamecocks in Fort Worth would require surviving a First Four game against Colorado, then toppling No. 5 Ole Miss and the winner of No. 4 Ohio State and No. 13 Vermont. It’s a long shot, but not an impossible one — and college basketball fans know all too well that March has a talent for delivering exactly the scenarios we least expect.
The Real Test: Louisville
Strip away all the what-ifs and hypotheticals, and the team most likely to represent South Carolina’s stiffest regional challenge is No. 2 seed Louisville. The Cardinals, currently ranked eighth in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, have developed into one of the premier programs in the ACC this season and represent the kind of battle-tested, high-seeded opponent that could legitimately push the Gamecocks to their limits in a regional final.
The Gamecocks already know what a game against Louisville feels like — they defeated the Cardinals 79-77 in a nail-biter earlier this season. But that contest, as close as it was, was played in the early months of the year. Louisville has evolved and improved considerably since then. If both teams advance through their respective halves of the Fort Worth bracket, a rematch in the Elite Eight — with a Final Four berth on the line — could be one of the most compelling games of the entire tournament.
The Full Fort Worth 3 Region
Here is how Creme’s latest ESPN bracketology breaks down the entire Fort Worth 3 Region:
Columbia Sub-Regional: No. 1 South Carolina, No. 16 Howard/Eastern Kentucky, No. 8 Southern Cal, No. 9 Villanova
Columbus Sub-Regional: No. 5 Ole Miss, No. 12 Colorado/Clemson, No. 4 Ohio State, No. 13 Vermont
College Park Sub-Regional: No. 6 Baylor, No. 11 Columbia, No. 3 Maryland, No. 14 Western Illinois
Louisville Sub-Regional: No. 7 Georgia, No. 10 Rhode Island, No. 2 Louisville, No. 15 Navy
The Bigger Picture
It is important to remember that bracketology is projection, not prophecy. Between now and Selection Sunday, SEC races will be won and lost, conference tournaments will reshape narratives, and the committee will continue its deliberations. South Carolina still has meaningful regular-season games ahead — including matchups with Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri, and Kentucky — and how they handle that stretch will matter.
But right now, the Gamecocks are positioned exactly where their résumé says they should be: among the nation’s four best teams, with a home court advantage in hand and a clear, if challenging, path drawn toward a deep March run. Dawn Staley has built this program into a perennial contender, and after Tessa Johnson’s statement performance against LSU on Valentine’s Day reminded the country just how dangerous South Carolina can be when firing on all cylinders, the question heading into March isn’t whether the Gamecocks belong in the conversation.
It’s whether anyone in Fort Worth — or beyond — can stop them.
Selection Sunday is scheduled for mid-March. South Carolina’s next game is on the road.
