Nov. 1, 2012
COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina athletics announced today that the women’s basketball game against LSU on Thu., Jan. 17, will be played at Carolina Coliseum rather than the Gamecocks’ traditional home of Colonial Life Arena. Scheduling challenges with Colonial Life Arena and the Southeastern Conference yielded the change in venue.
“Basketball scheduling is an increasingly challenging item for the conference office, and this year proved to be especially difficult,” South Carolina Deputy Athletics Director Charles Waddell said. “The SEC added two more teams, and many of us play in multi-purpose arenas. When it became clear that a compromise was in the best interest of everyone involved, we opted to change the venue for this one game.”
During the scheduling process for women’s basketball, the SEC considers a myriad of parameters. Scheduling begins once the television networks establish which men’s game each week will be played on Thursday night. After that, the SEC office works to balance the schedule in giving each team eight home and eight road games, paying special attention to how many of each site are in the first four and last four games of the season, and in not repeating venues from the previous season. The final piece of the puzzle is arena conflicts, of which there were nearly 10 across the league this season.
“We love our home at Colonial Life Arena and the presentation it enables us to make to our fans every time we take the court,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said. “Our administration is working hard to provide our fans with a great experience at Carolina Coliseum, and we are looking forward to what ideas the marketing staff has to embrace our one-time return to the historical venue.”
All season tickets will be honored at Carolina Coliseum with sections L, M, N and P reserved for season-ticket holders. Seating within those sections will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Additional information regarding parking, fan amenities and marketing efforts will be released closer to the date of the game.
