Rosters in faculty sports activities change yearly. Particularly with the switch portal now, it’s commonplace in faculty basketball to have a number of new gamers per group each season.
So, when the 2026-27 ladies’s faculty basketball season ideas off, Daybreak Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks — the three-time nationwide champs — are going to look completely different.
Sure, there will likely be new gamers. However this isn’t in regards to the names on the again of the jerseys; it’s about what emblem will likely be on the entrance of them.
In line with a number of stories, first by the Submit and Courier, South Carolina is ditching Below Armour and embarking on a brand new attire cope with Nike to outfit all of its athletic groups. The Gamecocks’ present contract with UA expires on June 30, 2026. South Carolina’s Board of Trustees is anticipated to satisfy Friday morning to approve the brand new cope with Nike.
South Carolina first linked up with UA in 2007 for a football-only deal, then expanded that to all sports activities in 2011. South Carolina is the final SEC faculty to be outfitted by Below Armour following the model’s breakup with Auburn. It nonetheless outfits some high-profile faculty applications comparable to Notre Dame and Maryland, and can start a cope with Georgia Tech in 2026.
For girls’s basketball particularly, the deal between Nike and the Gamecocks is noteworthy for a number of causes.
First, Nike just lately launched a signature shoe for A’ja Wilson — who there’s a statue of outdoor of Columbia’s Colonial Life Enviornment — however the Gamecocks haven’t been capable of put on the A’Ones in a recreation due to their settlement with Below Armour. Now, if South Carolina desires to, they will rock the sneakers of the best participant in program historical past whereas dominating the remainder of the SEC.
Second, Daybreak Staley has a preexisting relationship with Nike that could possibly be rekindled. Lengthy earlier than Wilson was taking part in within the WNBA, Staley had her personal signature Nike shoe, the Zoom S5, which debuted in 1998.
“I didn’t actually care what I regarded like from my ankles up, so long as ankles down have been good, new and clear. … And I feel that got here off as supercool to Nike … genuine,” Staley advised ESPN’s Andscape in 2021. “I feel my shoe was the flyest of all of them. Some ladies’s sneakers seem like ladies’s sneakers. I didn’t assume my shoe regarded like a girl’s shoe. It regarded like a dude might actually recognize it and put on it… The Zoom S5 was a fantastic shoe. Nike must carry that factor again.”
It’s unclear if Nike plans to revive Staley’s shoe, however we’ll at all times be capable of rewatch the business she shot for the Swoosh in 1996.
