Dawn Staley has a strength of schedule question after UCLA tops South Carolina for No. 1 overall seed.

COLUMBIA — For the last three years, South Carolina women’s basketball has been the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament but that isn’t the case in 2025.

The Gamecocks (30-3) are the No. 2 overall seed but one of four No. 1 seeds, hosting in the Birmingham 2 Region. UCLA, which beat the defending national champions on Nov. 24, is the top seed in Women’s March Madness.

Coach Dawn Staley and South Carolina will open tournament play with a first-round game against No. 16 Tennessee Tech on Friday in Colonial Life Arena.

When the Bruins (30-2) were announced as the tournament’s best team, a few boos rang through the crowd that showed up to watch the selection show on Sunday live from CLA with the team.

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“I am not in the (selection) room but obviously I think we did much more than probably any other No. 1 overall seed,” Staley said to media following the reveal. “We outdid ourselves even from last year with the amount of quality wins that we had but I guess the committee was looking at something else.”

In Columbia, the winner of South Carolina vs. Tennessee Tech will play the winner of No. 8 Utah and No. 9 Indiana.

“The draw is the draw,” Staley said. “We’re going to play each game like it’s our last.”

Staley said, when asked, that her gut feeling was that her team would be the No. 1 overall seed because of the work her team put in.

After losing to UConn on Feb. 16, South Carolina dropped to No. 2 in the NET rankings but no team in Division I women’s basketball has more Quad 1 wins than the Gamecocks. They have 16 Quad 1 wins and three Q1 losses. UCLA is No. 4 in the NET and has 13 Q1 wins.

“We’re going to play it, obviously it’s disappointing,” Staley said. “I’d like to get some feedback on how they came to that conclusion because we put together, we manufactured a schedule that if done right, it should produce the overall No. 1 seed. But I will say this, we’re going to make adjustments to our schedule in the future if the standard is the standard. If that’s the standard, we can play any schedule and get the No. 1 seed.”