PHOENIX — Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks are back in the national championship game for the third straight season. South Carolina took care of top overall seed UConn on Friday in the Final Four to earn a match with UCLA in Sunday's title game.
Championship familiarity
The Gamecocks have appeared in four of the last five national championships, winning in 2022 and 2024. The Bruins, on the other hand, will play in their first national championship game in program history. The school made its first ever Final Four last season before being knocked off by UConn.
"I definitely think last year felt like ... we were reacting to everything, not anticipating," UCLA head coach Cori Close said. "Whereas now that we have been a part of this, it just was a totally different planning experience."
Close has been the Bruins' head coach since 2011. Prior to her hire, the team had made it to the Sweet 16 just three times since the program's inception in 1981. By Close's eighth season at UCLA (2018-19), the team had played in four Sweet 16s in her tenure alone.
From 1964-75, the UCLA men's basketball team won 10 national championships. Since that stretch, the school has just one national title in the sport (1995). Close has been able to bring back that long-acknowledged basketball excellence to Los Angeles.
"Banners hang in gyms, and rings collect dust, but who you become and who you impact, you get to keep forever," Close said.
There may be no coach more familiar with building a program from the ground up than Staley. The Gamecocks will play for their fourth national title in nine years and their third in the past five. Bruin senior guard Kiki Rice doesn't put much weight into the two programs' experience disparity.
"This is a 2026 South Carolina team, this is a 2026 UCLA team," Rice said. "Regardless of our previous experiences, I feel like we're both really well prepared, and we'll both go out there and compete at a high level, but not looking too much at the fact that they've maybe had more experience on this stage."
New season, new identities
Looking at the two teams exclusively in 2026, they seemed to be on an inevitable collision course if either wanted to win the championship. Both South Carolina and UConn ranked top 10 in rebound margin, top seven in scoring offense, top six in assist-to-turnover ratio and top five in scoring margin.
From a historical perspective, however, the Gamecocks lead 4-2 all-time and 4-1 in the Staley era (since 2008). The two teams faced off in the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16 in 2023, with South Carolina earning a 59-43 victory.
Staley took her only loss in the series in the latest matchup with the Bruins on Nov. 24, 2024, in Los Angeles. UCLA won 77-62, handing the Gamecocks their first loss of the 2024-25 season.
"Losing happens, but that's in the past," junior guard Tessa Johnson said of the latest matchup. "No one's really focused on that. We're focused on what's ahead of us ... People keep asking us about our losses of last year, but we don't focus on that at all."
The Gamecocks have avenged losses all throughout this year's tournament. In the Sweet 16, the team beat Oklahoma after losing in the previous matchup on Jan. 22, and in the Final Four, the team beat UConn after losing last season's national title game.
The biggest stage
UCLA lost to No. 4 Texas on Nov. 26, but hasn't lost since, entering the national championship on a 30-game win streak. The Bruins also earned their revenge by defeating Texas on Friday in the Final Four by a score of 52-44. Senior center Lauren Betts led the team in points (16) and rebounds (11) in the low-scoring win.
South Carolina is also coming off a low-scoring affair, as the 62-48 win was the second-lowest scoring outing for the team this season. Similar to Betts, senior guard Ta'Niya Latson led her team in scoring (16) and rebounding (11). Both the Gamecocks and Bruins relied on defense to advance from the Final Four.
"Our team, when we get stops, we like to push in transition and play really fast," Betts said. "Just making sure we're taking things away, coming out with a very aggressive mindset and making things really hard for them. I think that will push us in our offense."
Betts, standing at 6 feet 7 inches, has helped fuel the Bruins' success on offense and defense with her team-highs of 17.2 points, 8.7 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game. Her presence in the paint will command attention, and sophomore forward Joyce Edwards will likely be at the forefront of the Gamecocks' efforts to counter her.
"It's hard," Edwards said. "We like to drive, and you have (6 feet 7 inches) in the paint ... Our biggest thing will be turning our defense into offense and getting in transition."
The Gamecocks out-scored UConn on the fast break 16-9 in the win, with Edwards grabbing a team-high three steals. She was tasked with guarding the Huskies' leading scorer, sophomore forward Sarah Strong, for a majority of the game and held her to just 12 points on 25% (4-16) shooting.
"We have to lean on our defense," Latson said. "Ultimately, it comes down to the defense, who can get the most stops, who can get the most rebounds. When the ball is not falling, you've got to impact the game in other ways."
Latson looks to end her college career as a national champion alongside her former high school teammate and current Gamecock senior guard Raven Johnson. As it stands, Raven Johnson's 22 games played in the NCAA Tournament tie the most by a Gamecock ever at the event. She's 20-2 in those games and holds program records in total assists (72) and total steals (37) in tournament games.
"We have one end goal, that's to win the national championship," senior guard Raven Johnson said. "We're going to keep the main thing the main thing."