Rosters in school sports activities change yearly. Particularly with the switch portal now, it’s commonplace in school basketball to have a number of new gamers per staff each season.
So, when the 2026-27 ladies’s school basketball season suggestions off, Daybreak Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks — the three-time nationwide champs — are going to look completely different.
Sure, there might be new gamers. However this isn’t in regards to the names on the again of the jerseys; it’s about what brand might be on the entrance of them.
In accordance with a number of experiences, first by the Submit and Courier, South Carolina is ditching Underneath 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 college to be outfitted by Underneath Armour following the model’s breakup with Auburn. It nonetheless outfits some high-profile school applications equivalent 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 just a few causes.
First, Nike lately launched a signature shoe for A’ja Wilson — who there’s a statue of outdoor of Columbia’s Colonial Life Area — however the Gamecocks haven’t been in a position to put on the A’Ones in a recreation due to their settlement with Underneath Armour. Now, if South Carolina desires to, they’ll rock the footwear 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 may very well 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 seemed like from my ankles up, so long as ankles down have been good, new and clear. … And I believe that got here off as supercool to Nike … genuine,” Staley advised ESPN’s Andscape in 2021. “I believe my shoe was the flyest of all of them. Some ladies’s footwear appear like ladies’s footwear. I didn’t suppose my shoe seemed like a girl’s shoe. It seemed like a dude might actually recognize it and put on it… The Zoom S5 was a good looking shoe. Nike must deliver that factor again.”
It’s unclear if Nike plans to revive Staley’s shoe, however we’ll all the time have the ability to rewatch the industrial she shot for the Swoosh in 1996.
