Sports

South Carolina Wins 1-Seed After Dawn Staley Chided Shortsighted Commissioner Over Coin Flip Absurdity

#South Carolina Gamecocks
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South Carolina basketball coach Dawn Staley on the sidelines.

© Jeff Blake-Imagn Images


The SEC women’s hoops championship was shared in the 2024-25 season after two teams finished with identical conference records. It forced the league to use a controversial solution in determining who’d get the No. 1 overall seed in its postseason tournament.

Texas and South Carolina ended their basketball seasons with 15-1 marks in SEC play. Each side handed the other its lone loss.

With win percentage and head-to-head results equal, conference officials had to move down their list of tiebreakers in order to decide seeding. It ultimately came down to a coin flip.

Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley was critical of that rule prior to her team’s season finale. She spoke on the possibility of the 50/50 flip earlier this week, comparing it to tiebreaker rules in other sports.

“I think we should’ve thought ahead a little more… That’s just me though. I would say imagine if it was football and it’s a coin flip, not for the who gets the ball first but who gets the first seeding in the national championship.

“Now, I’m not trying to throw the commissioner under the bus by any means. It has been a part of the tiebreakers since as long as I’ve been in the SEC, and that’s what it is. It’s unfortunate it’s coming down to that.”

-Dawn Staley

Football, unlike basketball, has a lengthy list of tiebreaker options. While a random draw is also the final solution, there are six steps that precede that last step. Basketball has just two buffers, making the coin flip outcome much more likely.

It’s worth noting that this process has been in practice Staley’s entire South Carolina basketball tenure. Football changed its rules amid conference realignment as it moved away from the divisional structure.

Still, she wasn’t happy that seeding wouldn’t be determined on the floor. And she has a point. Football, for example, uses a “capped relative scoring margin” rule as a determination. It almost ensures that performance will be the deciding factor in some form or another.

There’s no reason a similar statistic couldn’t be utilized in basketball. Staley thinks there should be.

In the end, things worked out for her squad. Commissioner Sankey’s coin flip landed on South Carolina. The Gamecocks will be the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament.

With that being said, this situation might force the league to reevaluate its tiebreaker rules for future seasons. Maybe Dawn Staley will be included in those talks.