Gamecocks Women to Open Season in Paris Against Maryland

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina women’s basketball will begin its season an ocean away. The top-ranked Gamecocks face No. 17 Maryland on Monday, Nov. 2, at noon Eastern at Adidas Arena in Paris, the opening half of a four-team college doubleheader in the French capital.

Oklahoma and North Carolina play the second game. The Paris event dates to 2023, when Dawn Staley brought her team to France for what was the first NCAA regular-season basketball game played there, and it has since grown into a two-game showcase meant to spread the college women’s game overseas.

This trip carries extra meaning for one Gamecock. Sophomore forward Alicia Tournebize, who stands 6-foot-7, grew up in Vichy, a little under 200 miles south of Paris, and played for the French professional club Tango Bourges Basket in the EuroLeague before arriving in Columbia midway through last season. About 40 friends and relatives are expected to be in the stands for her.

Her mother, Isabelle Fijalkowski, is a Women’s Basketball Hall of Famer who became the first Frenchwoman taken in the WNBA draft, in 1997. South Carolina added a second French player in April, freshman Justine Loubens.

The Gamecocks are the preseason SEC favorite and return All-American forward Joyce Edwards, guard Tessa Johnson and a healthy Chloe Kitts, back after a torn ACL cost her the 2025-26 season.

Staley’s program has reached the title game four times in five years and won it in 2022 and 2024, and enters this season looking to finish the job after back-to-back losses in the final.

Filed under: Chapin SC Sports News