Has UConn’s series with South Carolina evolved into a rivalry?

Later, UConn would become the program that all others chased, pushing up-and-coming programs to improve to meet their standard. Guided by the winningest coach in college basketball history, Geno Auriemma, the Huskies have reached 31 Sweet Sixteens, 28 Elite Eights and 23 Final Fours. They’ve amassed 59 conference championships (30 regular season, 29 tournament) and 11 NCAA national championships. It’s an almost unfathomable level of success that has forced other programs around the country to invest in women’s basketball, in the hope of achieving the same standard.

“I think we built our program based on the standard. UConn is [and] was the standard in our sport,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said on Tuesday. “If you play them long enough, you’ll figure out some nuances to help you win. If you can beat UConn, you can beat anybody.”

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On Feb. 20, 2020, for the first time in program history, South Carolina finally did get its elusive win against UConn. Since then, South Carolina has indeed beaten just about anybody. Dawn Staley‘s squad currently has a program and SEC-record 70-game home winning streak that began on Dec. 17, 2020 and — until Sunday’s loss against Texas — amassed a 57-game regular-season SEC win streak. Since its first title in 2017, the Gamecocks have won three national championships (2017, 2022, 2024) to UConn’s zero.

In that same time frame, the Gamecocks have also taken control of their series against UConn — amassing a 4-1 record across its five most recent games. How has South Carolina been able to find the winning formula, and are the Gamecocks now the Huskies’ premier rival?

Gamecocks take control

It’s been just over four years since Paige Bueckers made her debut in the South Carolina-UConn series. On Feb. 8, 2021, in a nearly-empty Gampel Pavilion, the lanky 6′ freshman showed why she was the nation’s best player, scoring 31 points — including each of UConn’s nine overtime points — in a thrilling 63-59 victory over the Gamecocks. In 45 minutes played, Bueckers also contributed six steals, five assists, four rebounds and a block.

“She’s that player,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said following that game. “She’s that player that comes along that people talk about — ‘Hey did you see that kid from Connecticut?’ She’s that kid.”

Since that 2021 overtime victory in the fog of the pandemic, the Huskies have dropped four consecutive games to the Gamecocks. At the start of the 2021-22 season, the teams met in the championship game of the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas — the 61st meeting between the top two teams in The Associated Press women’s college basketball poll. Behind 22 points and 15 rebounds from then-sophomore Aliyah Boston, the Gamecocks returned to the mainland with some hardware.

The next time the teams met, another championship was on the line — the 2022 NCAA national championship. At the Target Center in Minneapolis, just minutes away from Bueckers’ hometown of Hopkins, Minn., the teams battled for national supremacy. In a lopsided 64-49 victory, South Carolina won its second national championship, delivering Auriemma his first-ever loss in a national title game.

“I feel like a lot of people use [defeating UConn] as a standard when you look at a program like South Carolina and how much it’s developed and how great it is,” Boston said after the 2022 title game. “And I feel like coming into this game, the conversation was about how Coach Auriemma was 11-0 in title games. But Coach Staley was 1-0, and now she’s 2-0. And I think it just shows the type of program that she’s built and how great it is being a dynasty.”

The following season the Gamecocks accomplished another first — defeating UConn in the state of Connecticut. This time, Bueckers watched from the sideline after sustaining a season-ending ACL injury prior to the season. The Huskies kept it close but ultimately fell 81-77 to the Gamecocks in Hartford.

In their last matchup, last February in Columbia, the Gamecocks again asserted their greatness, handily defeating UConn by 18 points. Although Bueckers scored 20 points, she did so on just 8-for-20 shooting from the field. Both programs advanced to the Final Four in Cleveland last season, with UConn falling to Iowa in the semis and South Carolina completing its undefeated season in the title game over the Hawkeyes.

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“South Carolina is a great team, a great program — very well coached. [I] have a lot of respect for them, for Dawn, the players — and it’s always a great match. Like I said, a very great team,” Bueckers told reporters on Wednesday. “They’re very disciplined. They have a way of playing that they’re very well coached, and they stick to it. … That’s been the same every single time we’ve matched up. It’s just great competition.”

A rivalry?

There is no doubt a high level of competition exists between the Huskies and Gamecocks whenever they face off on the court. It’s a dynamic and exciting series, but has the matchup elevated to rivalry status? In a March 2023 interview with Taylor Rooks, Dawn Staley hesitated to label it as such.

“I wouldn’t even say we’re rivals because you gotta win,” Staley said in the interview. “The percentage of them beating us is very high to our low.”

As the 2025 regular season iteration of the series approaches, is it time to reconsider that take? After all, a win by the favored Gamecocks on Sunday the program’s all-time winning percentage against the Huskies to .400 — higher than rivals Notre Dame (.296) and Tennessee (.370).

“It should be cyclical — you know, the first, what, five, six years that we played them, whether it was here or there or NCAA tournament, it didn’t seem like a rivalry, [it] was just totally one-sided. And you knew that wasn’t going to be like that forever. So things do go in cycles and it should, and that’s what makes the game compelling,” Auriemma said on Wednesday. “When two really high profile teams get a chance to compete against each other, does that make it a rivalry? I guess. I mean, I don’t think if South Carolina beats us they’re gonna get t-shirts with the score printed on it. I think they have bigger fish to fry than beating UConn.”

Auriemma makes a good point. South Carolina is focused on its own conference foes like Texas and LSU — teams in a three-way tie for first place in the SEC. Even with a loss on Sunday — should the Gamecocks win out the rest of the season — it’s likely they still have the resume to be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. South Carolina is ranked No. 1 in the NET rankings, and have amassed a 10-2 record in Quad 1 matchups.

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UConn, on the other hand, must win the game against South Carolina to be in consideration for its first No. 1 seed since 2021. The Huskies sit at No. 2 in the NET rankings, but have competed in just six Quad 1 games, going 3-3 in those matchups. In each of its biggest tests so far this season — against Notre Dame, USC and Tennessee — UConn has been outmatched. The Huskies haven’t been challenged by the BIG EAST schedule so far this season, so this is their last chance to clinch a resume win to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee.

Whether or not it’s considered a rivalry, when No. 7 UConn travels to No. 4 South Carolina this Sunday, it will be a test of two of the country’s most elite, consistently-excellent programs. It’s a battle between two of the game’s best coaches and current and future All-Americans. It’s a test for both programs — fine-tuning for the postseason peering just around the corner — and it’s evident that South Carolina is now, irrefutably, a fixture at the very top of the sport.

“I enjoy the competition, and it’s hard as hell to win down there,” Auriemma said. “We made it look easy back in the day, but it was never easy, and it’s even harder now.”