COLUMBIA, S.C. — Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks, in recent years, have emerged as the standard-bearer in women’s college basketball.
They’ve won two of the past three national titles, have led the nation in attendance for more than a decade and boasted the most impressive winning streaks of the 2020s. The Gamecocks’ four consecutive wins over the UConn Huskies, including one in the 2022 NCAA national championship game, further solidified that status.
But Sunday afternoon in Columbia, South Carolina, it was like the Huskies turned the tape back to the 2000s and 2010s, and in the process, they made a statement about this season’s team. No. 7 UConn used a vintage performance to throttle the defending national champions 87-58, stunning the basketball world and snapping the No. 4 Gamecocks’ 71-game home win streak.
The victory marked the largest road win for any Division I program over a top-five team since 2009, when the Huskies demolished then-No. 2 North Carolina. It is also the…
