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South Carolina wins coin-flip tiebreaker with Texas for No. 1 seed in SEC women's basketball tournament

The Gamecocks and Longhorns split their season series and had the same conference record

ian casselberry
Contributing writer
·3-min read

The No. 1 seed in the upcoming SEC women's basketball tournament came down to a coin flip. South Carolina's side of the coin came up and the Gamecocks will be the top seed for the conference tourney, which begins Wednesday in Greenville, South Carolina.

The No. 6 Gamecocks defeated No. 15 Kentucky on Sunday, 78-66, giving them a share of the SEC's regular season championship with a 15-1 league record (27-3 overall). Shortly thereafter, No. 1 Texas blew out Florida, 72-46, to finish its regular season with a 15-1 SEC mark (29-2 overall) and a share of the title.

South Carolina and Texas split their regular-season series, with the Gamecocks winning in Columbia, 67-50, and the Longhorns prevailing in Austin, 66-62. The latter victory ended South Carolina's 57-game SEC winning streak.

So head-to-head matchups didn't provide a tiebreaker. Both teams also only had one conference loss, leaving the SEC no other option than to decide the tournament's top seed on a coin flip. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey flipped the coin during halftime of Sunday's Ole Miss-LSU game.

Earlier in the week, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley wasn't thrilled about deciding the No. 1 seed on a coin flip, giving a sarcastic "Yay" to reporters. She felt much better about it after winning the toss on Sunday.

"It was kind of exciting. The build-up was good," Staley said afterward. "When you're part of the equation, it doesn't feel good to have your fate in a coin toss. I didn't know that eight other sports use a coin flip. That was news to me."

Meanwhile, Texas coach Vic Schaefer wasn't amused at Sankey joking that he practiced the coin toss for two hours.

"I'm just curious, he said he'd been practicing for two hours," Schaefer said. "What was he practicing? Was he practicing for South Carolina to be heads up or Texas to be heads up? I mean, why do you have to practice for two hours?"

South Carolina will be the top seed in the SEC tournament for the fourth consecutive year. They have won five of the past six conference tournament titles. Texas won the Big 12 tournament last year in its final season in that conference.

Based on the second top-16 reveal from the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Committee last week, the Longhorns are projected as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament while the Gamecocks are expected to be a No. 2 seed.

As the No. 1 seed in the SEC, South Carolina will play the winner of the matchup between the No. 8 seed and whichever team wins the No. 9 and No. 16 game in the first round. Tipoff is at 12 p.m. ET on Friday. Texas will play the winner of the game between the No. 7 seed and the No. 10 versus No. 15 opening-round matchup. That game will be played on Friday at 6 p.m. ET.