South Carolina women’s basketball has navigated a taxing stretch, grinding through two nail-biters away from Colonial Life Arena. The Gamecocks dropped a two-point heartbreaker to No. 2 Texas in Las Vegas before bouncing back with a three-point victory over No. 22 Louisville on the Cardinals’ home floor.
For most teams, a tight contest against a top-five opponent—one you’ll see again—and a ranked road win would be cause for celebration. But at South Carolina, where Dawn Staley has built a decade of dominance, even narrow wins can create unease among fans.
The heightened expectations are understandable. The Gamecocks simply don’t find themselves in back-to-back one-possession battles very often.
During the 2025 NCAA Tournament, South Carolina eked out consecutive four-point wins over Maryland and Duke in Birmingham. But the last time USC played two straight regular-season games decided by four points or fewer was back in December 2021—a four-point victory against Stanford followed by a one-point loss to Missouri.
You have to go even further back for back-to-back regular-season games decided by a single possession: November 2015, when USC edged UCLA 68-65 and Arizona State 60-58 in Hawaii.
A decade later, this latest string of tight finishes has revealed something important to Staley: this year’s Gamecocks can take a punch.
“You know, whether we won or lost this basketball game, it’s a great game. We took steps forward. Fortunately for us, we won the game,” Staley said after the Louisville matchup.
Resilience has become essential for a program Staley admits is still figuring out its identity. South Carolina returned only three players who averaged more than 15 minutes last season.
“This isn’t a team we’ve had for years,” Staley said on Dec. 3 after the loss to Texas. “… Our defense has got to get better. Just defensive breakdowns. All the stuff that you can point to and just say, ‘Hey, you can’t really be upset.’ Because you can point to the things, it wasn’t effort, it was more of execution of what we needed to be executed.”
South Carolina enters this season with an entirely new starting lineup—Raven Johnson is the lone holdover from last year’s first five.
“We’re trying to find chemistry,” Johnson said. “I think we’re doing a really good job. Playing through the high of the highs, and the low through the lows. We’re going to get better each game, so I’m very proud of this team.”
If Johnson has learned anything about this group, it’s that the fight never stops.
“We dig deep, we trust one another through the good or through the bad. I think that’s what you need when you play games like this,” she said. “Coach Staley is not going to let us take the foot off the pedal.”
Finding that identity won’t be easy with a rotation of just 10 available players. Limited depth has resulted in the starters logging heavy minutes almost every night.
The starting five currently averages between 26 and 32 minutes per game, with Tessa Johnson leading the team in floor time. Staley has made it clear that this workload will continue until the bench becomes more dependable.
“I mean, I thought maybe once in the fourth quarter, they looked really winded. And fortunately for us, I think [Jeff Walz] challenged an out-of-bounds score,” Staley said. “… So, yeah, I mean, you look at them, and you see, do we give someone a blow here or there? And I thought we did a pretty good job in the first half. Second half, we didn’t feel strong enough to just sub them out.”
Still, Staley made a point to praise freshman Ayla McDowell for the valuable minutes she contributed off the bench in the Louisville game.
And for South Carolina, escaping a hostile environment with a win—even a tight one—is something Staley isn’t taking for granted.
