There will be no shortage of compelling storylines in SEC women’s basketball for the 2024-25 season, from Dawn Staley and South Carolina looking to successfully defend their NCAA championship to a new era beginning at Tennessee, one of the sport’s most tradition-rich programs.
Now, the league’s top teams have at least one more high-profile spot on their non-conference schedules filled.
On Wednesday, the SEC announced matchups for the second annual ACC-SEC Challenge, which pits teams from the two Power Five conferences against one another in standalone games.
REQUIRED READING: 2024 ACC-SEC Challenge: See all 16 matchups for college basketball event
Highlighting that group of 16 games is the Gamecocks’ game vs. Duke in a matchup of two projected top-15 teams entering the 2024-25 season. South Carolina, which several outlets have tabbed as the preseason No. 1 team, will look to become the first back-to-back champion in women’s college basketball since UConn finished off its run of four consecutive titles from 2013-16.
Duke is heading into its fifth season under former Tennessee star Kara Lawson.
Elsewhere, and in what will be one of its first big tests under first-year coach Kim Caldwell, Tennessee will take on Florida State at Thompson-Boling Arena. Caldwell takes over the Lady Vols after just one season at Marshall, which she guided to a 26-7 record and a nine-win improvement from the previous season. In eight seasons as a college head coach, the first seven of which were at the Division II level, Caldwell is 217-31.
The ACC-SEC Challenge debuted last season after existing for years as the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. On both the men’s and women’s side, the two leagues split their 14-game series, with each conference winning seven games.
Both leagues will have different membership structures heading into next season, with Oklahoma and Texas joining the SEC while Stanford, Cal and SMU join the ACC. As the 18-school ACC has two more members than the SEC, two of its teams — Pitt and Wake Forest — were not included in the event this year.
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ACC-SEC Challenge women’s basketball matchups 2024
Here’s a full look at the 2024 ACC-SEC Challenge matchups in women’s basketball:
Wednesday, Dec. 4
- Florida State at Tennessee
- Virginia Tech at Georgia
- Mississippi State at Georgia Tech
- Oklahoma at Louisville
- Syracuse at Texas A&M
- Vanderbilt at Miami
Thursday, Dec. 5
- Alabama at Cal
- Boston College at Arkansas
- Auburn at Virginia
- Florida at Clemson
- Kentucky at North Carolina
- Stanford at LSU
- Ole Miss at NC State
- SMU at Missouri
- Duke at South Carolina
- Texas at Notre Dame