Dawn Staley used her birthday Monday to give women’s basketball fans a present, announcing that South Carolina and Oregon are finalizing a deal to open next season in Eugene.

Appearing on WIS Today, Staley emphasized that the contracts have not been signed, but, alluding to public comments made by Oregon’s Kelly Graves, believed that agreement is close enough to a done deal to announce it.

South Carolina and Oregon are both scheduled to appear in the inaugural Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in 2020, but the matchups for the tournament have not been announced. Apparently either worried the tournament may not be played or concerned they may not meet, South Carolina and Oregon decided to leave nothing to chance.

The Gamecocks and Ducks were the consensus two best teams in the country last season and appeared on a collision course to meet for the national championship. The Ducks were the preseason number one and had the Player of the Year in Sabrina Ionescu, but Staley grew frustrated as the year went on and the Ducks continued to get most of the attention despite the Gamecocks having the better record, better RPI, and holding the #1 ranking for 10 weeks, longer than any other team.

“I have an issue with our national media who choose to write about a narrative and stick with it even though it doesn’t fit,” Staley said. “You have to make people pivot and talk about you a little bit.

In her postseason wrap up, Staley added, “I know moving forward if the narrative isn’t about who deserves it on our side of things, we’re going to write our own narrative and we’re going to push it out.”

It wasn’t idle talk.

Staley’s announcement came the same day as a documentary on the 2019-20 Gamecocks will debut on SEC Network. Staley was heavily involved in creating the documentary, no doubt inspired by a similar documentary on the Ducks that aired on the Pac 12 Network.

While the game will be fun for fans and give bragging rights for the unfinished 2020 season, the teams that face each other will be very different. Oregon not only loses Ionescu, but three other starters, and will rely heavily on freshmen and sophomores. South Carolina only loses two players, but will be breaking in a new starting point guard for the first time in four years.

Fans of the winner will get extra ammunition when they argue over the mythical 2020 national championship, although not much. More than that, it’s a sign that Staley is more than willing to insert the Gamecocks into the national conversation.