South Carolina finally released its 2021-22 schedule, and it does not disappoint. A challenging schedule is nothing new - the Gamecocks played the toughest schedule in the nation last season - but the 2021-22 schedule is ridiculous.

South Carolina plays defending national champion Stanford, and potentially two games against fellow Final Four participant UConn. The NCAA recently released its preseason power rankings. South Carolina led the way, followed by UConn, Stanford, Maryland, and NC State, all opponents this season. South Carolina could also meet Oregon, ranked seventh, in the Battle 4 Atlantis.

In total, the Gamecocks will play at least 14 games, and as many as 16, against teams that participated in last season’s NCAA Tournament. They play all three of the other number one seeds and, two each of the two, three, and four seeds.

Additionally, South Carolina will play up to 13 games against teams that finished last season ranked in the top 25. And that doesn’t include Duke, which saw its season cut short due to COVID. There are just two guarantee games and one of those opponents, North Carolina A&T, is a defending conference champion.

The good news is that South Carolina gets Maryland, Stanford, and UConn at home (plus Clemson). The bad news is that five of the first six games are on the road. Two years ago, South Carolina visited Maryland on November 10, the first weekend of the season. At the time, it was the earliest meeting between top ten teams ever. This year South Carolina will top that, playing at NC State November 9, the first day of the season. It will certainly be a top ten matchup, and could be a top five game.

It took a long time for South Carolina to finalize its nonconference schedule, but Dawn Staley knew in April it was going to be challenging.

“I said to myself that we wouldn’t schedule as many (hard games), that we needed some cupcake games to get our players some experience, playing time,” she said. “It doesn’t look like that’s the case.”

Because of last season’s mess, there are several contracted games on the schedule that Staley didn’t want to break. South Carolina is completing the home-and-home with NC State that began last season, as well as the home-and-home with Maryland that originally began in 2017 and was renewed before being interrupted last season. South Carolina also apparently still owed South Dakota a road game.

Back in April, Staley explained her scheduling strategy. South Carolina may lose a game early in the season, but the selection committee is going to reward those quality wins.

“We want to be the number one overall seed in the NCAA Tournament,” she said. “I would like to be that, just so we are putting ourselves in the best chance of winning the championship, and the way you do that is in November and December.”

There’s no doubt Staley has set up a schedule to do just that. South Carolina will have no shortage of opportunities to earn quality wins and clinch a top seed. South Carolina will also be able to measure itself against other top teams, teams it may well see again in the NCAA Tournament.

The SEC schedule does South Carolina no favors either. In addition to the usual home-and-home with Kentucky, South Carolina also has two games against defending regular season champion Texas A&M and emerging Ole Miss. South Carolina finishes the season on the road against those two, and it’s not hard to envision a scenario like last season where the Gamecocks have to win in a hostile environment to claim the SEC title.

On top of that, the SEC Tournament is in Nashville this year, so South Carolina won't get the de facto home court advantage it enjoyed the last three seasons.

View the complete schedule here.