Who? The Lady Gamecocks of South Carolina. I'll let you sort through the biological illogic of that.
What? They've been Gamecocks since the early 1900s. The current mascot is Cocky- with two mascot championships, it ain't bragging if you back it up.
Where? Columbia, South Carolina, one of the first planned cities in the US.
When? March 17th, in West Lafayette, Indiana.
How? They were an at-large selection.
Partner: Eastern Michigan, of the Mid-American Conference.
Surprise? A solid SEC team- yeah, South Carolina doesn't surprise me.
RPI: 33
SOS: 43
Record: 23-9 (10-6 Southeastern)
Good wins: Sweep of Vanderbilt, at Tennessee.
Bad losses: At Auburn.
Who's running this show? Dawn Staley, since 2008. Used to be several stories tall and on the side of a building in Philadelphia.
With thanks to Rebkellian scfastpitch for a detailed breakdown of a team I've only seen bits and pieces of:
Somehow I'm not surprised Dawn Staley puts together a guard-dependent team. Senior Markeshia Grant leads the team with 10.6 points... by four total points on the season over her classmate La'Keisha Sutton (340 to 336). Junior Ieasia Walker most often seems to be in the role of facilitating the offense, leading the team in assists with 3.1 per game, but she's also capable of stepping up as a scorer. The rebounding is fairly well spread out- but would someone please get Ashley Bruner to a free throw specialist? 49-126 makes my eyes hurt looking at it. (I am A-OK with her offensive rebounding, though.)