The South Carolina women’s basketball team has dominated for much of the 2014-2015 season.
The Gamecocks have won 30 games, are the SEC regular season and tournament champions and are ranked No. 3 in the country.
With that said, a whole new season will soon begin. When the NCAA tournament starts later this week, every team is essentially 0-0. A loss from this point on is a season-ender, and South Carolina must play its best basketball of the year to win a national championship.
One benefit that South Carolina should enjoy is staying home for the first weekend of the tournament.
In the past, schools would have to apply in advance to host early-round games at their home venues. The Gamecocks couldn't do this because of an NCAA rule that prohibited the state of South Carolina from hosting post-season games at predetermined sites due to the Confederate flag which flies in front of the State House.
However, the NCAA has since made a rule change, allowing the 16 top-seeded schools to host the first two rounds of the tournament at their home venues. This change should let the Gamecocks play a post-season game at the Colonial Life Arena for the first time.
In the past, the Gamecocks have had to travel to places such as Boulder, Colorado, and Seattle, Washington for the first weekend of the tournament because of the prior rule.
“I think it makes a world of a difference,” Staley said, “to be able to know that your body of work puts you in a position to host and not have to travel over two and three time zones.”
The road that the Gamecocks must travel to reach the Final Four will become clearer Monday night when the field of 64 is announced and South Carolina finds out who its first round opponent is.
The Gamecocks are hosting a “one. FAN-ily Selection Show” event on Monday at Colonial Life Arena, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Fans are invited to come as the team will watch the NCAA selection show. Afterwards, South Carolina's head coach will address the audience.
South Carolina, which spent several weeks ranked No. 1 in the country this season, is all but guaranteed a No. 1 seed at this point. ESPN women’s basketball bracketologist Charlie Creme predicts Connecticut, Notre Dame and Maryland will be the other No. 1 seeds.
South Carolina earned a No. 1 seed last season for the first time in program history and doing it again would be another sign of the impressive job Staley has done in her seven seasons as the Gamecocks' head coach.
One important question that will be answered when the bracket is made public on Monday is what region will South Carolina be placed in.
Four different cities host the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight rounds of the tournament and the Gamecocks could either end up in the Greensboro, Oklahoma City, Spokane or Albany region.
Last year South Carolina had to travel to Palo Alto, California to face North Carolina in the Sweet 16.
A trip to Greensboro would be the closest for South Carolina this year, but Creme currently has the Gamecocks going to Oklahoma City in his latest mock bracket.
Regardless of where South Carolina ends up traveling, the Gamecocks are determined to follow up their SEC championship with another in Tampa Bay, the site of the Final Four.
For junior point guard Khadijah Sessions, cutting down the nets after getting crowned the SEC’s best was a great feeling worth chasing.
“This right here is going to motivate us,” Sessions said. “We want a national championship, and this feeling right here is something that you want again.”