Oregon women top Georgia, return to Sweet 16 as 6 seed
SAN ANTONIO >> Sedona Prince scored 22 points, Nyara Sabally took over late and sixth-seeded Oregon beat No. 3 Georgia 57-50 on Wednesday in the women’s NCAA Tournament to advance to its fourth straight Sweet 16.
Sabally scored six straight points — including a putback of her own missed shot — to break open a tie game and give the Ducks a 54-48 lead with less than a minute to go. She finished with 15 points, including 10 in the second half, and nine rebounds.
“Ny and I talked before the fourth quarter and we were like: ‘We’re going to go to the Sweet 16,’” Prince said.
Oregon (15-8) is in the tournament for the 16th time overall, but this Ducks team came in less heralded than those led by Sabrina Ionescu, who missed out on her final chance at a national title last year because of the pandemic.
“Everybody knows what we had and the opportunity and capability of doing in this tournament last year and it was taken away from us ... and the expectations weighed heavily on them,” coach Kelly Graves said. “And then when you start losing a few games and people start to question your program and then your own players sometimes maybe question themselves, (this) is great redemption.”
Jenna Staiti had 18 points and nine rebounds for Georgia (21-7), which was looking to reach its first Sweet 16 since 2013.
Staiti was encouraged by the step forward the Lady Bulldogs took this season. MARYLAND 100, ALABAMA 64 >> Maryland and its offensive juggernaut are rolling fast and easy into the Sweet 16, getting 19 points from Angel Reese and overwhelming Alabama.
The second-seeded Terrapins (27-2) came into the tournament with the nation’s highest-scoring offense and have yet to take their foot off the gas. The Terps are averaging 99 points in their two tournament wins after scoring 91.3 per game in the regular
season.
Maryland hit the 100-point mark for the seventh time this season. The Terps also played aggressive, suffocating defense against the seventh-seeded Crimson Tide. Maryland harassed ballhandlers in the backcourt, smothered briefly open shooters and controlled the rebounding.
Jasmine Walker led Alabama (17-10) with 23 points. MISSOURI STATE 64, WRIGHT STATE 39 >> Elle Ruffridge had a career-high 20 points with five 3-pointers, Jasmine Franklin had a double-double and fifth-seeded Missouri State is going to its second consecutive Sweet 16 after knocking off Wright State in a matchup of mid-major teams.
The Lady Bears (23-2) pulled away in the second half when Ruffridge had 17 of her points. Franklin had 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Ruffridge and Franklin are among nine current Lady Bears who were also part of the Sweet 16 team two years ago that lost to Stanford, the same team they will play in the Alamo Region semifinal Sunday.
Missouri State went ahead on two tiebreaking
free throws by Brice Calip with 2 minutes left in the second quarter before Mya Bhinhar swished a 3-pointer for a 24-19 halftime lead. Sydney Manning’s 3-pointer capped a 12-3 run to start the second half. That trio was also on the last Sweet 16 team. INDIANA 70, BELMONT 48 >> Grace Berger scored 17 points and Indiana used another suffocating defensive effort to beat Belmont, sending the fourth-seeded Hoosiers to the program’s first Sweet 16.
Belmont was the first Ohio Valley Conference team to win a tournament game since 1990, but its chances of becoming the fifth No. 12 seed to advance to the regional semifinals were smothered by the Hoosiers’ defense and the Bruins’ own dismal 3-point shooting through the first three quarters.
Indiana (17-9) was just as efficient on offense as four Hoosiers scored in double figures. Indiana advances to play North Carolina State, the No. 1 seed in the Mercado Region.
Destinee Wells scored 16 points to lead Belmont (216).
LOUISVILLE 62, NORTHWESTERN 53 >> Kianna Smith scored 16 points and No. 2 seed Louisville advanced to the Sweet 16 by rallying from an early 18-point deficit to beat seventh-seeded Northwestern.
The Cardinals (25-3) got off to another rough start, trailing 25-7 late in the first quarter. Louisville slowly started to chip away on offense and played stellar defense. The deficit was 40-28 midway through the third quarter before the Cardinals scored 17 straight points.
The game was tied at 40 heading into the fourth, and Louisville increased its first lead to 45-40 before Lindsay Pulliam — Northwestern’s third-ever 2,000-point scorer — got her only basket of the game.
The Wildcats (16-9) closed to 53-50 on Jordan Hamilton’s 3-pointer with 3:26 left. They had a chance to move closer, but Veronica Burton missed two free throws 30 seconds later. ARIZONA 52, BYU 46 >> Aari McDonald had 17 points with 11 rebounds and Arizona outlasted BYU, advancing to the Sweet 16 for the first time since coach Adia Barnes was a player for the Wildcats in 1998.
The third-seeded Wildcats (18-5) finally went ahead to stay on a 3-pointer by Sam Thomas with 3:47 left, not long after McDonald’s 3 cut their deficit to one. BYU (19-6) had matched its biggest lead of the game — four points — on a layup by Shaylee Gonzales with just over five minutes left.
McDonald, a secondteam All-American and the Pac-12 player of the year, sealed the Mercado Region game when she stole the ball from Gonzales, the co-West Coast Conference player of the year, and drove for a layup with 3 seconds left. That final basket gave Arizona its largest lead of the game.
TEXAS A&M 84, IOWA STATE 82 (OT) >> Jordan Nixon banked in a short jump shot at the buzzer in overtime, giving her a career-high 35 points and lifting No. 2 Texas A&M to a victory over seventh-seeded Iowa State in the second round.