Outdoor dining, turkey trots, and impromptu beach visits are among Southwest Florida’s longtime annual Thanksgiving traditions.
It’s time to add high-level women’s college basketball to the list.
Once again, the fields for the Fort Myers Tip-Off at Suncoast Arena and the Gulf Coast Showcase at Hertz Arena will feature a quartet of the best teams in the women’s game, led by defending national champion South Carolina.
It’s another coup for the local tournaments, which last year saw Caitlin Clark and Iowa shatter attendance records at the Showcase and a Power 5 battle between Indiana and Tennessee set a women’s college basketball rating record for FOX.
While no one can match the attention frenzy generated by the crossover mega-star Clark, Southwest Florida will get an up close and personal view of Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley, one of the most dynamic personalities in the women’s game.
A Hall of Fame player who won three Olympic gold medals and was a six-time all-star in the early days of the WNBA, Staley has surpassed her on-court accomplishments at South Carolina. She rebuilt the Gamecocks’ program from the ground up, advancing from 10 wins in her first season to an NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearance in her sixth, to South Carolina’s first national championship in her ninth.
The Gamecocks have since added two more national titles, including last April when they knocked off Clark and Iowa to cap off a perfect 38-0 season.
With Clark’s departure to the WNBA, South Carolina is now the greatest show in women’s college basketball. The Gamecocks return eight of their top nine players, led by guards Raven Johnson, Te-Hina Paopao and MiLaysia Fulwiley, and added the Gatorade National Player of the Year in forward Joyce Edwards. And Southwest Florida will have a front row seat to the spectacle.
“We’re excited,” said Fort Myers Tip-Off event director Mark Starsiak. “And to have them coming off an undefeated season? Perfect timing. That program is so massive in the sport now.”
It will be South Carolina’s second appearance in Fort Myers during Thanksgiving Week. In 2017, the Gamecocks were coming off their first national championship when they played at the Gulf Coast Showcase where they lost in the final to Notre Dame.
Staley said she and her team are excited about returning to Southwest Florida for the Tip-Off, which will also feature the South Carolina men’s team for a pair of games on Monday and Wednesday.
“It’s great competition; we’re able to measure ourselves against some of the top teams in the country,” Staley said. “It just fit for us this year and we’re looking forward to it.”
Preseason No. 1 ranked South Carolina will face Iowa State, a top 10 team, at 1:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day and take on Purdue Saturday.
“To have the chance to follow up Indiana and Tennessee, which was the most watched women’s basketball game on FOX ever, with a team like South Carolina, that’s a no-brainer,” Starsiak said.
While the Gamecocks have certainly had their share of nationally televised games during their recent run of success, Staley said playing on FOX on Thanksgiving Day is special both for South Carolina and the sport as a whole.
“I think it’s huge because obviously FOX just isn’t going to put something on without having the data to back up that it’s a good investment,” she said. “So it’s pretty cool to be traveling in places that few women’s basketball teams have. It’s a great opportunity for women’s basketball to win and keep expanding.”
Three years ago, Bill Fennelly brought his Cyclones team to Fort Myers for the Gulf Coast Showcase and left with a tournament title. So when he got a call about returning to Southwest Florida for the Tip-Off and a chance to play before a national TV audience on Thanksgiving Day, he jumped at the opportunity.
“We knew it was Middle Tennessee State and Purdue and one more team so we just said, let’s do it,” said Fennelly, who’s in his 30th year as Iowa State’s head coach.
It wasn’t until later the Cyclones learned they’d be facing South Carolina at the Tip-Off, news that broke three days after Iowa State booked a December game at perennial national power UConn.
“The initial reaction is, you’d better lace them up really tight,” said Fennelly, who returns the bulk of his team from last year’s NCAA Round of 32 appearance, led by sophomore center Audi Crooks. “It’s a national TV game and you’re playing the defending national champion and one of the best teams our sport’s seen in a long time.
“It’s an early season game and you want to challenge your team. Hopefully, we can compete in a game like that.”
In 1995, Fennelly inherited an Iowa State program that had never reached the NCAA Tournament and meticulously built a consistent winner, growing a rabid and dedicated fanbase along the way. Now three decades later, Cyclones fans will help pack an arena 1,500 miles away from campus for a Thanksgiving Day game on FOX that serves as the appetizer to the NFL’s matchup between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys.
“I don’t think I could have predicted that,” Fennelly said of the meteoric rise of interest in women’s college basketball. “I think people who have been involved in college basketball for as long as I have, you hope to get to that point. You’re building something and it’s a slow process.
“But it’s been so fun to see the sport grow and hopefully that continues for the next wave of young girls that want to play at this level.”
For Iowa State, facing South Carolina on national TV comes with nothing but positives.
“Obviously when you play a team like them, anything that you don’t do well is going to be exposed at a very high level,” Fennelly said. “And things you do well, it becomes, well OK, if we can do it against them, we can do it against anyone and that helps you going into your conference games and hopefully, into the postseason.
“Plus it’s a great way to showcase, not just your program, but your university on a national stage. So we couldn’t be more excited and to get to do it in such a great place, that makes it doubly special.”
Now in its 11th year, the Gulf Coast Showcase came along at a time when there weren’t as many Thanksgiving tournament options for women’s teams. Because of that, the event was able to attract some of the nation’s best teams early in its history, including UConn, Stanford, Baylor, Notre Dame and in 2021, South Carolina.
This year’s eight-team field includes a pair of top-caliber programs in Texas, led by preseason Associated Press All-American forward Madison Booker, and West Virginia. It’s the second appearance at the Showcase for the Longhorns, who won the tournament championship in 2018. The rest of the field is highlighted by a trio of WNIT participants from last season: Boise State, Butler, and Illinois State along with West Coast Conference stalwart Santa Clara.
Glenn Pfister, the Showcase’s executive director, said the explosive interest in the women’s game has made it more difficult to build a deeper field of Power 5 teams for tournaments.
“When we first started this event, we could kind of have the pick of the litter on who we wanted to participate,” he said. “But today, there’s so many events out there that you’re not going to get a field that four of five Power 5s. Those are becoming few and far between.
“That said, we think we have a really competitive field and if we end up with a Texas-West Virginia championship, we’ll be really happy.”
More high-level women’s tournaments, however, means more opportunities to grow the game, a development that strengthens all of these events in the long run.
“At the end of the day, there’s plenty of room for everybody to succeed,” Pfister said.
And for Southwest Florida’s women’s college basketball fans, future opportunities to see the best players and teams in the sport come to town.
At Suncoast Credit Union Arena
Men’s schedule
Monday
Palms Division
Miami (OH) vs. Siena , 11 a.m.
Jacksonville vs. Mercer, 1:30 p.m.
Beach Division
Michigan vs. Virginia Tech, 6 p.m.
South Carolina vs. Xavier, 8:30 p.m.
Tuesday
Palms Division
Third place: Miami-Siena loser vs. Jacksonville-Mercer loser, 11 a.m.
Championship: Miami-Siena winner vs. Jacksonville-Mercer winner, 1:30 p.m.
Wednesday
Beach Division
Third place: Michigan-Virginia Tech loser vs. South Carolina-Xavier loser, 6 p.m.
Championship: Michigan-Virginia Tech winner vs. South Carolina-Xavier winner, 8:30 p.m.
Women’s schedule
Thursday
Island Division
South Carolina vs. Iowa State, 1:30 p.m.
Purdue vs. Middle Tennessee State, 4:30 p.m.
Friday
Shell Division
Michigan vs. Belmont, 2 p.m.
Virginia Tech vs. Davidson, 4:30 p.m.
Saturday
Island Division
South Carolina vs. Purdue, 11 a.m.
Iowa State vs. Middle Tennessee State, 1:30 p.m.
Shell Division
Third place: Michigan-Belmont loser vs. Virginia Tech-Davidson loser, 5 p.m.
Championship: Michigan-Belmont winner vs. Virginia Tech-Davidson winner, 7:30 p.m.
At Hertz Arena
Men’s schedule
Monday
Ball State vs. Eastern Kentucky, Noon
Southern Illinois vs. Louisiana Tech, 3 p.m.
Richmond vs. Florida Tech, 6 p.m.
Tuesday
Eastern Kentucky vs. Southern Illinois, Noon
Louisiana Tech vs. Richmond, 3 p.m.
Florida Tech vs. Ball State, 6 p.m.
Wednesday
Eastern Kentucky vs. Louisiana Tech, Noon
Southern Illinois vs. Florida Tech, 3 p.m.
Richmond vs. Ball State, 6 p.m.
Women’s schedule
Friday
Boise State vs. Illinois State, 11 a.m.
West Virginia vs. High Point, 1:30 p.m.
Butler vs. Santa Clara, 5 p.m.
Texas vs. New Mexico State, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday
Boise State-Illinois State loser vs. West Virginia-High Point loser, 11 a.m.
Butler-Santa Clara loser vs. Texas-New Mexico State loser, 1:30 p.m.
Boise State-Illinois State winner vs. West Virginia-High Point winner, 5 p.m.
Butler-Santa Clara winner vs. Texas-New Mexico State winner, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday
Seventh-place game, 11 a.m.
Fifth-place game, 1:30 p.m.
Third-place game, 5 p.m.
Championship, 7:30 p.m.
Fort Myers Tip-Off: Go to https://www.fortmyerstipoff.com/tickets/
Gulf Coast Showcase: Go to https://gulfcoastshowcase.com/fans/
