Would 38-0 make South Carolina a dynasty? Dawn Staley says Lady Vols under Pat Summitt provide the answer

For the third straight season, South Carolina women’s basketball is entering the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed.

It’s the second consecutive year the Gamecocks (32-0) reached March Madness with an undefeated record, and they’ve spent 56 of the last 57 weeks atop the AP Poll.

In other words, South Carolina sits right at the top of the sport.

“We want to win,” coach Dawn Staley said after South Carolina clinched the SEC regular season title. “If there’s a championship, we want to win. If there’s a game out there, we want to win.”

A 38-0 undefeated season would elevate South Carolina among women's basketball's all-time greatest programs.

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Staley, however, won’t describe her own program as a dynasty, even just within the SEC.

“We’ve been pretty successful,” Staley said. “Tennessee had a dynasty. I don’t know where we measure up to them. Unless we are doing things they haven’t done consistently, you can’t really call it a dynasty.”

As eight-time national champions, Tennessee in still the standard in the conference. The Lady Vols have never missed an NCAA Tournament in its 43-year history. Legendary coach Pat Summitt took the program to 16 SEC championships and 18 Final Fours and earned eight SEC Coach of the Year awards in her 31 years at the program’s helm.

Staley, now owner of eight SEC championships, five Final Fours and seven SEC Coach of the Year awards in roughly half the time, is slowly catching up.

Staley has elevated the Gamecocks to a new level since taking over in 2008. South Carolina was a substandard program in the SEC, winning 10 games in conference play only once between joining the SEC in 1990 and Staley’s arrival.

After two seasons under .500, Staley began to turn the program around. The Gamecocks reached the NCAA Tournament in 2011 and haven’t missed since. They’re 434-106 under Staley, and she’s continually raised the program’s standards – even to levels this season’s team had to work to achieve.

“As coaches, you get to a point where you’re not going to allow them to lower the standard of our program,” Staley said. “It was low in June. It wasn’t where I wanted it to be, but it couldn’t because they weren’t capable of holding up the standard. Their standards weren’t that high where they come from.”

Staley is not as close to catching UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who has guided the Huskies to 11 national titles and 22 Final Fours in 39 years.

UConn has been one of the top programs decades, but its grip is beginning to loosen. The Huskies represent what is perhaps women’s basketball’s last true dynasty as the sport grows deeper.

Women’s college basketball has as much parity as ever before. No. 1 seeds Stanford and Indiana fell in the Round of 32 in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, marking the first time since 1998 two No. 1 seeds failed to make the Sweet 16.

Since UConn capped off its four-peat from 2013-16, only one program – South Carolina – has won multiple titles. The Gamecocks have also won five of the last six against the Huskies, including the 2022 national championship.

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Staley can join a small list of coaches with her third national title – Auriemma, Summitt, Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, who has three titles in her 38 seasons with the Cardinal, and current LSU coach Kim Mulkey, who won three at Baylor before winning with the Tigers last season.

This season, Staley proved she can keep building on the program’s already strong foundation. A whole new starting lineup to replace an outgoing class of stars. An improbable 32-0 regular season. Another SEC Tournament championship.

Third title or not, the Gamecocks aren’t going anywhere.

Evan Gerike covers South Carolina women's basketball for the Greenville News. Email him at egerike@citizentimes.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanGerike.