Dawn Staley, national champion Gamecocks invited to White House

In celebration of its 2024 national championship, South Carolina women’s basketball has been invited to visit the White House on Tuesday, Sept. 10.

The Gamecocks finished the 2023-24 season 38-0, completing the first undefeated season in Division I basketball since the UConn Huskies in 2016.

This will be USC’s first White House visit, as its previous national championship teams (2017 and 2022) were not able to make the trip. The 2017 squad received an invite, Staley said in November of that year, but chose not to attend.

“We did hear from the White House about attending (the) event, but we will not be able to attend,” she said in a statement. “As I’ve been saying since our practices for this season started, all of our focus is on the season ahead. The only invitation we are thinking about is to the 2018 NCAA Tournament.”

Congressman James Clyburn said USC was invited to the White house during the 2022 national championship parade in Columbia, adding that he’d “leave the date up to you all to work out.” But the visit never happened. In February of 2023, Staley said someone had mentioned March as a possible time frame, but at that point USC was in the throes of an undefeated season with eyes on the Final Four in Dallas.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.