South Carolina opened the season the way most people expected, ranked No. 1, favored, and built for a long run. What they didn't expect was a season opener that looked like a shootout from March.
The top-ranked Gamecocks held off a furious rally from No. 20 Maryland, 101-93, in Paris, France, in a game that served as the first real measuring stick for both programs before a single conference possession has been played. Joyce Edwards led the way with 23 points, and South Carolina needed almost all of them, plus everything else it could scrape together, because Maryland simply would not go away.
A 101-93 final in an opener tells you two things right off: somebody's defense wasn't ready for live bullets yet, and somebody on the other side believes it. Early-season games are supposed to be sloppy. This one was sloppy in the way that reveals talent rather than hides it, both sides trading buckets at a pace you usually see in February, not November.
south carolina vs maryland score
The final number, 101-93, is a lot of points for a first game of the year, and it's worth sitting with for a second. South Carolina is the preseason No. 1 for a reason, deep, physical, battle-tested from last spring. Maryland came in ranked 20th, a program that's made a habit of overachieving its seed in recent seasons, and on this particular night in Paris, the Terrapins didn't play like a 20 seed at all. They played like a team that smelled an upset and kept coming.
That's the story under the story here. South Carolina won, but it wasn't the kind of win that papers over questions. A top-ranked team giving up 93 points and needing a furious final push just to survive a rally is the first data point of the season, and in women's college basketball, first data points tend to matter more than people assume, because rosters and rotations are still being figured out in real time.
why was south carolina maryland played in paris
Women's college basketball has been chasing a bigger stage for its marquee matchups for a few years now, and playing a top-25 showdown as a season opener overseas is part of that push. Putting the preseason No. 1 against a ranked opponent, in Paris, on opening night, is a statement about where the sport thinks it's headed, not just a scheduling quirk.
checked the almanac: college programs have been taking marquee openers overseas for a while now, but pairing a No. 1 and a No. 20 for a season-opening tip in Paris is as big a stage as the women's game has set for itself this early in a year.
For South Carolina, the version of the team that showed up in Paris is one that can still get outscored for stretches, something worth tracking as the non-conference schedule fills in. For Maryland, the read is the opposite and more encouraging: a ranked team that went into a true road atmosphere against the best team in the country and didn't blink until the final minutes. That's a program banking confidence early, which tends to show up later.
What I'm watching next is simple: whether South Carolina tightens up defensively against lesser competition the way a No. 1 team eventually has to, and whether Maryland can turn a near-miss in Paris into the kind of signature non-conference win that defines a season come March.
