South Carolina women's basketball is launching a new tournament this fall that puts three HBCU programs on the same floor as the three-time national champion Gamecocks, but with a twist: the event is built around far more than the final score. The inaugural PowHER Player Classic will bring Tennessee State, Alabama A&M and North Carolina Central to Colonial Life Arena in Columbia on Nov. 28 and 29, 2026, with games, community service, and a marketplace for players to cash in on their name, image and likeness all packed into the same week.
The event was announced Thursday by South Carolina women's basketball, as reported by Greenville News. Alabama A&M and NC Central will tip off the first game on Nov. 28, followed by South Carolina against Tennessee State later that day, with consolation and championship games set for Nov. 29. Head coach Dawn Staley said the goal is straightforward: young women should not be left behind as opportunities in the sport expand, according to the same report.
The tournament format leans heavily on relationships Staley has built over nearly two decades in Columbia. Tennessee State is led by Candice Dupree, who played for Staley at Temple from 2002 to 2006 before a 16-year WNBA career and a stint as an assistant coach with the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, according to Tennessee State University Athletics. North Carolina Central is now coached by Olivia Gaines, a former South Carolina guard who played on Staley's 2015 Final Four squad and was hired in May after posting a 36-19 record over two seasons at Division II Allen University, per North Carolina Central University Athletics.
Beyond the Scoreboard: NIL, Service and Culture Night
What separates the PowHER Player Classic from a typical early-season showcase is everything scheduled around the games. The event includes a Thanksgiving community service event, an NIL marketplace for players on Friday, and a Culture Night Kickoff Dinner hosted by Rae Rose Media on Friday evening, according to South Carolina Athletics. Rae Rose Media is a sports-centric media company that works with women's athletic programs and female athletes to elevate their brands, and the agency is partnering directly with South Carolina women's basketball on the event.
Rae Rose Media Co-Founder and President Erica Berman said the agency partnered with Staley to create intentional spaces that let female student-athletes translate visibility into long-term commercial value, according to South Carolina Athletics. Staley has echoed that framing herself, saying basketball provides access and opportunities beyond what happens on the court, per Greenville News. Alabama A&M head coach Dawn Brown said in August that participating in the PowHER Player Classic gives her Bulldogs a national platform and essential experience against elite competition, according to Alabama A&M University Athletics.
A Track Record of Scheduling HBCUs
This is not Staley's first attempt to bring HBCU programs into South Carolina's orbit. She has scheduled at least one regular-season game against an HBCU in 15 of her 18 seasons in Columbia, per Greenville News, and she agreed to a home-and-home series with Coppin State in late 2024 that included a South Carolina trip to Baltimore. South Carolina also faced Southern, an HBCU located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the first round of March Madness.
Those matchups have historically produced lopsided results. South Carolina beat North Carolina Central 106-42, Coppin State 90-48, and Southern 103-34 in recent NCAA Tournament and regular-season play, according to HBCU Gameday. Staley has pointed to that same imbalance in explaining her motivation, saying HBCUs have sometimes received unfair treatment simply because they are HBCUs rather than Power 4 programs, and adding that HBCUs are super well-coached, per Greenville News.
South Carolina's History Against the Field
South Carolina enters the inaugural tournament with an undefeated 3-0 all-time record against North Carolina Central and a 2-0 all-time record against Alabama A&M, according to South Carolina Athletics. The Gamecocks arrive with the resume to match: Staley has guided the program to three NCAA Division I national championships, in 2017, 2022 and 2024, along with eight Final Four appearances. The program also led all of NCAA Division I in national attendance for 11 consecutive seasons through 2024-25, averaging nearly 17,000 fans per game at Colonial Life Arena, according to On3.
That drawing power comes with financial backing to match. In January 2025, the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees approved a contract extension for Staley through the 2029-30 season worth $25.25 million, making her the highest-paid women's college basketball coach in history with an initial base salary of $4 million, according to University of South Carolina Athletics. That kind of resource gap is part of why the PowHER Player Classic's NIL marketplace and Culture Night matter as much as the box score to the visiting programs, several of which are still building out their own brand infrastructure.
The tournament arrives just months after Hoodline reported on NCCU's $110 million windfall, part of a broader wave of institutional investment at participating HBCUs. Whether the PowHER Player Classic becomes an annual fixture, and how any ticket revenue or appearance arrangements will be structured among the four programs, remains to be seen as the inaugural event approaches this Thanksgiving weekend in Columbia.
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