South Carolina visits Florida Thursday night as it goes for a perfect SEC season.

1. SEC!

Well so much for all the interest in this game…

This was supposed to be the game where South Carolina was playing for the outright SEC regular season championship. But Mississippi State’s surprise upset at the hands of Alabama took care of that. So what is at stake now? A perfect conference season. Just one (2016) of South Carolina’s four previous titles included a perfect season. That team finished the regular season 28-1, a mark this team could match. That team was ranked #3 at the end of the season, won the SEC Tournament, but then lost in the Sweet Sixteen. Those goals are too far down the road to worry about now, but not the perfect season.

“That’s always been the goal,” Mikiah Herbert Harrigan said. “We approach every game the same and go game by game.”

Tennessee has gone undefeated in the SEC nine times, but 16-0 just once. Mississippi State went 16-0 in 2018, but lost to South Carolina in the SEC tournament final. Among teams that went undefeated prior to the 16 game season were Georgia (9-0 twice), Auburn (9-0 twice), LSU (14-0 twice), and Ole Miss (8-0, 11-0).

“We’re here,” Dawn Staley said. “Our team wants to win out, wants to be undefeated. In order for us to do that we’ve got to show up and play the way we’ve been playing all season long.”

There has been a revenge factor in South Carolina’s run to the SEC championship this season. It began with the non-conference schedule, when South Carolina beat Maryland and Baylor, avenging losses from a season ago. As conference play began, that turned to reclaiming the SEC, which meant among other things, beating Mississippi State, who had claimed the throne in South Carolina’s absence.

“It feels amazing,” Tyasha Harris said Sunday. “I was part of that history when I came here, and then I was part of the team that lost it. It’s good to bring it back home.”

It also meant beating Kentucky. Kentucky was South Carolina’s first rival during the Staley era. In the early 2010s, Kentucky was near the top of the SEC, and South Carolina was able to upset the Wildcats a number of times. As the programs position in the hierarchy changed, with South Carolina ascending to the top, Kentucky struggled to repay the favor. Kentucky got a big upset in 2015 in Lexington, denying South Carolina a perfect season. But the game Staley remembered was the one from last season, when, in Columbia of all places, Kentucky snapped a ten-game losing streak, and denied South Carolina a winner-take-all game against Mississippi State ten days later.

“Kentucky was the one that really upended our chances,” Staley said. “That one hurt. That one hurt because I didn’t know if that team could be where it was at the time. I didn’t know if we could get ourselves to a point where we were even in the conversation. That’s why it stung so much. We worked so hard to get to that point and have the kind of defeat we had at our place was really upsetting”

Harris and Staley made those comments fresh off beating Kentucky and winning the title. By Wednesday, some of the shine was already gone.

“It was pretty special, but we have bigger goals in mind, so it was more, turn to the next page,” Herbert Harrigan said.

2. SEC! SEC!

A week or two ago, somebody casually asked me, referring to the Florida coach, “Do you think Cam Newbauer is in any trouble?” The Gators went 3-13 in the SEC in each of Newbauer’s first two seasons, and looked like they were headed for another three or four win season. “No,” I answered, and I wish I could say it was because I saw Florida’s late-season surge coming, but really I just thought, “You can’t give up on him after three years.” Now, Florida is looking like maybe it is turning the corner.

Florida caught a break when they played #13 Kentucky without an injured Rhyne Howard, but still few expected the Gators to pull off a win in Lexington. They did, breaking a five-game losing streak and starting a run where the Gators have won four of six games, including Sunday’s win over #22 Arkansas, in which the Gators led wire-to-wire. The two losses were narrow defeats to Georgia and Alabama, who are also 6-8 in the SEC.

That was a real missed opportunity for Florida, as all three try to make a late run in the conference, just two games behind Tennessee and LSU in sixth place. The top and the bottom of the conference may be set, but the middle is made up of a bunch of teams trying to secure a spot in the tournament or make a late season-push. Florida will have another shot at Georgia on Sunday. On the flip side, the trio is just one game ahead of 11th place Missouri. That may matter more, since seeds 11-14 begin playing Wednesday, while seeds 5-10 get a bye until Thursday.

3. Milestone Watch

In case you missed it, the win over Kentucky was Staley’s 300th at South Carolina, and South Carolina 200th SEC win (Staley has been the coach for 136 of those). South Carolina’s five titles in seven seasons is the most since Tennessee won seven straight from 1998 to 2004.

“I didn’t put goals on this team because I didn’t know them,” Staley said. “I knew what Ty would bring to the table. I knew what LeLe would bring to the table and KiKi, but that’s just a fourth of our team. The three-fourths of the team, how are they going to respond to playing in this league and playing the schedule we had. You just don’t know.”

- South Carolina is looking for its 12th straight win over Florida, which would even the all-time series at 20.

- A win would be the 22nd in a row, tying the 2015-16 team for the longest win streak in program history.

- Mikiah Herbert Harrigan is one block away from becoming the third Gamecock with 200 career blocks.

- Against Kentucky, Harris moved into the top ten for career steals with 214. She is seven assists away from reaching the top ten in career assists in the SEC.

- Zia Cooke has four 20-point games in conference play, more than any other Gamecock freshman since joining the SEC.

- Aliyah Boston has been even better. Compared to A’ja Wilson and Alaina Coates, who both won SEC Freshman of the Year, Coates is averaging more rebounds, blocks, and shooting a better percentage than both. She is scoring more than Coates, and currently 0.2 points per game less than Wilson, South Carolina’s all-time leading scorer, averaged as a freshman. Boston already has the school record for double-doubles by a freshman. Earlier this week, Boston was named a Naismith Defensive Player of the Year semifinalist, the only freshman to make the list.

4. SEC Tournament watch

In clinching the regular season title, South Carolina also clinched the top seed in the SEC tournament. As a result, the Gamecocks now know their schedule. South Carolina’s first game will be at noon on Friday, March 4 (Session 4). If they advance, they will play at 5:00 pm on Saturday (Session 6). The final is Sunday at 3:00 pm (Session 7).

I believe the only other seed that is set is Ole Miss at #14. Everything else is still in play this week.

As a side note, the current agreement, set in 2016, scheduled the tournament in Greenville in 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021. The 2018 and 2022 tournaments were scheduled for Nashville as part of the 2015 agreement that made Nashville the semi-permanent home of the men’s tournament, with the women’s tournament as a fill-in when the men’s tournament is held in St. Louis and Tampa. That agreement originally had the women’s tournament in Nashville in 2026 while the men went to another site, but in 2017 the SEC decided to make Nashville the full-time home of the men’s tournament until at least 2035.

5. Scouting the Gators

Florida has one of those standout freshmen “other than South Carolina’s class,” guard Lavender Briggs. A 6-1 guard, Briggs is averaging 14.8 points per game, top ten in the SEC. Briggs is a good three point shooter, but she does a lot of damage with her midrange game (not unlike Zia Cooke). She will likely be matched up against Brea Beal, which will be fun to watch.

Briggs gets help from KiKi Smith and Zada Williams, both double figure scorers, but as a team the Gators don’t score well. The Gators are 12th in the SEC at just 63.7 points per game. They shoot a lot of threes (fifth in attempts), but don’t make many (29.8 percent, 12th in the SEC).

This is Florida’s first game against a #1 team since playing South Carolina in 2015. It is the first time Florida has hosted the #1 team since 1998, when it hosted Tennessee. Florida is 0-9 all-time against top-ranked opponents.

The Ws

Who: #1 South Carolina (27-1, 14-0) at Florida (15-12, 6-8)

When: Thursday, February 27, 6:00 pm

Where: Exactech Arena, Gainesville, FL

Watch: SEC Network+