South Carolina dominant in dismissal of Quinnipiac
STOCKTON, Calif. — Sure, South Carolina’s women’s basketball team knew a little something about Quinnipiac’s surprising NCAA tournament run as Connecticut’s other Sweet 16 team.
The Gamecocks ignored the “Q” on the front of the opposing jersey and immediately went to work.
Kaela Davis, A’ja Wilson and the rest of the top-seeded Gamecocks overpowered the upstarts from the opening tip, scoring the first 16 points on the way to beating the 12th-seeded Bobcats 10058 in Saturday’s first semifinal in the Stockton Regional.
“It doesn’t matter what name is on the jersey, we come out to play,” said Allisha Gray, who had 19 points and eight rebounds to help the Gamecocks (30-4) earn their eighth straight win. “Obviously they had a good run, but we’ve still got a mission to complete, and that’s to make it to the Final Four and national championship.” Said Davis: “I second that.” Davis scored 28 points with five 3-pointers and Wilson added 24 as South Carolina’s athleticism and smothering, swarming defense were just too much for Quinnipiac. The Bobcats (29-7) started out 0-for10 and took more than seven minutes to score as they struggled to get shots off, let alone establish their typically prolific perimeter game.
“I thought our players came out ready to play on both sides of the ball,” said South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, who led her team to the Elite Eight for the second time in three years.
Adily Martucci and Fay each scored 12 points for Quinnipiac, which had won 12 straight games, beating fifth-seeded Marquette and No. 4 seed Miami for the first two NCAA tournament wins in school history.
› Florida State 66, Oregon State 53: Ivey Slaughter started swiping to help Florida State discover its best defense from all angles, and the third-seeded Seminoles (28-6) erased a daunting deficit against second-seeded Oregon State (31-5) to reach the Stockton Regional final and a matchup with South Carolina.
Slick-handed Slaughter had a career-high nine steals, a school record in the NCAA tournament, and Florida State had 16 total. Slaughter wasn’t far from a triple-double, also contributing 11 points and eight rebounds, and teammate Shakayla Thomas notched her third straight double-double by scoring 12 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.
Kolbie Orum scored 12 points to lead the Beavers, who made the Final Four last year. They led by 17 points late in the first quarter and by 10 midway through the second.
› Oregon 77, Maryland 63: In Bridgeport, Conn., Sabrina Ionescu scored 21 points to lead five double-figures Ducks as the Bridgeport Regional’s No. 10 seed continued its improbable run through the bracket.
Fellow freshman Ruthy Hebard added 16 points for Oregon (23-13), which beat second-seeded Duke in the second round and now moves on to a regional final — the first in program history — against overall No. 1 seed UConn.
Maite Cazorla added 15 points, Oti Gildon had 11 with four steals and Lexi Bando scored 10. Ionescu also had seven assists and six rebounds.
Brionna Jones and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough each had 16 points for No. 3 seed Maryland (32-3), which averaged more than 90 points a game to lead the nation this season but was held to its lowest point total of 2016-17.