PHOENIX — The South Carolina women’s basketball team’s season is over.

It ended Sunday without the Gamecocks cutting down the nets. It ended with blue and yellow confetti falling in Mortgage Matchup Center, not garnet and black.

The spot in South Carolina’s trophy case for a fourth national title will remain vacant for another year.

Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks lost 79-51 to UCLA in the 2026 NCAA Tournament national championship game. South Carolina ends the year with a 36-4 record.

It’s the second year in a row where the Gamecocks had to leave the court in second place. Last year, it was in Tampa, Fla., with a loss to UConn. This year, it was in Phoenix after a loss to the Bruins.

South Carolina’s players walked off the court Sunday with more straight faces and looks of stunned silence than tears. The latter mostly came in the locker room.

Freshmen like Agot Makeer fought through tears while answering questions from the media. Seniors Raven Johnson and Ta’Niya Latson embraced each other, both holding back tears (to varying degrees of success) while contemplating the lone season the former high school teammates got to spend together in college.

The sting that comes with the loss will undoubtedly linger for the Gamecocks. Still, there’s still plenty that stands out about what Staley and her team were able to do across the 2025-26 season.

The standard at South Carolina is to make Final Fours and compete for national championships year in and year out. Staley, who put together one of the better coaching jobs in her career, did just that and took the Gamecocks back to the Final Four despite several glaring obstacles along the way.

“We got a chance to play on the last day of college women’s basketball, a season of a lot of great basketball, great talent, great coaching, just great viewership,” Staley said. “When you’re in this position, you don’t win all of them. There are too many great teams out here, too many great players and coaches that decrease your chances of winning national championships.

“The trick is to continue to get here. The more you get here, the more you increase your chances of winning.”

Injury bug bites ... hard

South Carolina was hit with adversity months before the season began.

Former All-SEC forward Ashlyn Watkins — whose 2024-25 season was cut short by an ACL injury — announced in July that she planned to take the year off from basketball.

That cut the active roster down to 11 players.

In mid-October, exactly three weeks before the season began, South Carolina announced that talented forward Chloe Kitts would miss the year with an ACL tear.

That cut the active roster down to 10.

South Carolina was depleted in the post before the first game was played, a position group that’s been dominant for the Gamecocks and historically set it apart from other teams. (Think A’ja Wilson, Aliyah Boston, Kamilla Cardoso, Alaina Coates ...)

The Gamecocks entered the season with four new starters as a result of the early injuries. Raven Johnson was the lone returning starter, Tessa Johnson and Joyce Edwards were elevated from the bench, and senior transfers Latson and Madina Okot were thrust into the starting lineup in their first year with the program.

“I don’t know if anybody had us here,” Staley said. “I don’t know if anybody had us certainly advancing to this point. So I’m super proud of our team.”

The injuries didn’t stop there. This season only two Gamecocks played in all 40 games: Raven and Joyce Edwards. Several players — including Okot, Latson, Tessa, Agot Makeer, Maddy McDaniel and Adhel Tac — missed at least one game with an injury, illness or suspension at some point this season.

There was more than one occasion this season where South Carolina played a game with just eight available players. The Gamecocks utilized eight different starting lineups, which is four times as much as last year’s total. Raven said the adversity taught her to trust in her teammates.

“I remember the day [Kitts] went down, I closed my eyes and said, ‘Jeez, what are we going to do?’ I probably should have never said that,” Raven said. “It’s little things like that where you have coaches, Coach has resources around us that uplift us. ... We all trusted one another with people going down throughout the season. Everybody stepped up when their number was called.”

Constant bites from the injury bug did, in a way, lead to a 6-foot-7 sized silver lining.

South Carolina bolstered its depth immediately (and for the future) by adding French recruit Alicia Tournebize to the roster in January. The forward — who averaged four points and 3.4 rebounds in 12 minutes — provided a solid boost off the bench and helped provide Okot and Edwards with some relief during the back half of the season.

Yet, the wins kept coming

Even as the team struggled to keep a healthy roster this year, Staley had the Gamecocks winning.

South Carolina lost just twice during the regular season and entered the postseason 29-2. There were 12 wins in between a November loss to Texas and a January loss to Oklahoma.

“The Oklahoma loss, that tore us apart,” Raven said. “It was more of a lesson for us. I feel like we were getting a bit complacent when we kept winning. It just showed us that we have a high standard here. We need to keep our standard high, attack practice like it’s our last day.”

South Carolina was never ranked below No. 4 in The Associated Press Top 25 and was top six all season in the NET rankings used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee.

The Gamecocks finished with a 15-1 record in the SEC and clinched their fifth-straight SEC regular season title and 10th overall in program history. South Carolina held off valiant efforts from such conference challengers as LSU, Texas and Vanderbilt, who all had a real shot at winning the regular-season championship.

“I think it means a little bit more, because this league is so hard,” Staley said last month. “... Just super proud of our players for just being able to compete and win at the highest level in this league.”

South Carolina was awarded the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament for its efforts but ultimately lost to Texas (for the second time in the season) in the finals.

Staley’s squad was dominant in the NCAA Tournament. South Carolina scored over 100 points in each of the wins over No. 16 Southern and No. 9 seed Southern Cal in the first two rounds of March Madness.

The Gamecocks kept firing on all cylinders with a 94-68 win over Oklahoma in the Sweet 16, avenging their lone SEC loss from January. In the Elite Eight, it looked like No. 3 seed TCU might give South Carolina a run for its money. But a second-half surge helped the Gamecocks win 78-52 and punch its ticket to their sixth-straight Final Four.

The road ends in Phoenix

All eyes were on Phoenix on Friday night as South Carolina and No. 1 overall seed UConn met in the Final Four in a rematch of last year’s national title game.

UConn got the better of the Gamecocks last year, but it was all South Carolina this time. Both teams traded blow after blow like the two heavyweight fighters they are in the game. But ultimately it was South Carolina who came out on top, avenging last year’s loss to the Huskies.

South Carolina moved on to the national championship vs. UCLA after beating UConn 62-48.

The Gamecocks’ defensive masterclass in the matchup against the Huskies was overshadowed by late-game antics from UConn head coach Geno Auriemma. Handshake or no handshake, Staley didn’t allow the confrontation to be a distraction for her team entering the national title game.

“No distractions at this time,” Staley said a day later. “Concentrating on winning the national championship. That’s it.”

South Carolina’s loss to UCLA in the title game was a rather unceremonious ending to the season. The Gamecocks struggled on both sides of the ball and were dominated in the national title loss.

“We tried, but we just didn’t have it today,” Staley said. “They were the better team today. Congratulations to them. Sometimes you’re part of women’s basketball history and it’s not favorable to your team.”

The future looks bright

South Carolina has played in the past six Final Fours and has made an appearance in the past three national championships.

One glance at next year’s roster and it’s not a stretch to think the Gamecocks will be right back competing for a title next season.

“We don’t like this feeling,” Tessa said. “The standard here is to get here. I do expect our team to get here next year. The girls in the locker room, the younger girls, they don’t like that feeling either.”

Yes, South Carolina faces the challenge of replacing such seniors as Raven, Latson and Maryam Dauda, but the foundation of the program is still rock solid.

Barring any transfers, the Gamecocks will return starters like Edwards and Tessa, seniors in Kitts and Watkins, and a trio of younger guards in McDaniel, Makeer and McDowell.

Combine those players with three high school recruits (two of which are five-stars) and whomever Staley may bring in via the transfer portal, and South Carolina should be in good shape. ESPN already has South Carolina ranked No. 3 in their way-too-early Top 25 rankings, and that’s before any portal additions.

The foundation ”is great,” Edwards said. “We’re gonna have players that can make a huge impact. We’ll have Chloe back, Ash back. We’re gonna have people who have experience playing and hopefully we can win it all.”

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