SEC Basketball Schedule Released

The SEC released its 2013-14 schedule on Wednesday, which means the Gamecocks are nearly ready to announce their schedule for the year.  Once again, the conference used the 1-4-8 model (2 games against one permanent opponent; 2 games against 4 rotating opponents, and 1 game against eight other rotating opponents (different from last year)).

After playing Missouri twice last year, Carolina draws Florida twice this season, but only has one date with Kentucky.  If this rotation continues going forward, this hopefully means Carolina will only have four games a season against the three most likely powerhouses in the conference (Mizzou, Florida, and Kentucky), which should bode well for their hopes of making a move up the SEC standings as the program progresses under second-year coach Frank Martin.

The other four teams the Gamecocks get twice are

- Georgia, our permanent rival, who may improve in some places this year, but will need to replace top 15 draft pick Kentavious Caldwell-Pope;

- Ole Miss, who should regress this season with the loss of three senior starters, not to mention the possible suspension of Marshall Henderson;

-  Texas A&M, who need to replace superstar Elston Turner, but otherwise bring back a relatively experienced team; and

- Auburn, who likely will not improve this season, and will be playing for coach Tony Barbee's job.

Aside from those 10 games, the remaining 8 games are four at home against LSU, Vanderbilt, Alabama, and Kentucky, and four games on the road at Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi State.

This also means that (again, if the SEC schedule holds up as it should under this rotation) next season, the Gamecocks will play the following schedule:

- 2 games a piece against Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee;

- 1 home game against Mississippi State, Missouri, Florida, and Texas A&M

- 1 away game each against Vanderbilt, LSU, Auburn, and Ole Miss.

Also, given what we currently know about our schedule from other media outlets (nothing insider), the Gamecocks schedule currently has 25 games, with a few more dates still to be released.  Those are set out below.  Once the full schedule comes out, we'll begin previewing the slate in more detail, but suffice to say it will be a significant step up in competition from last year's cakewalk (of course, we didn't exactly make that cakewalk look easy...).

Edit: This post has been updated to reflect the announced date of the Carolina/Clemson game, as well as the Marshall game.  Seriously guys, just go ahead and release the schedule.