No. 1 South Carolina basketball beats South Florida in NCAA Tournament
The No. 1 South Carolina Gamecocks play the South Florida Bulls at 1 p.m. Sunday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at their home venue, Columbia’s Colonial Life Arena.
The State’s Jeremiah Holloway and Chapel Fowler are there to bring you live updates as the undefeated Gamecocks, who won the 2022 national championship over UConn, seek a Sweet Sixteen berth.
The winner of South Carolina-South Florida will play either No. 4 seed UCLA or No. 5 Oklahoma in the Sweet Sixteen on Saturday, March 25. The Bruins and Sooners play their March Madness second round game Monday at 10 p.m.
Women’s basketball score right now
USC beats USF, makes Sweet 16
Final: No. 1 South Carolina 76, No. 8 South Florida 45.
The Gamecocks will advance to their ninth Sweet 16 under coach Dawn Staley and will play either No. 4 UCLA or No. 5 Oklahoma on Saturday March 25 at at Greenville’s Bon Secours Wellness Arena.
USF put up a fight, led by as many as five points and only trailed by four points (33-29) at halftime. But South Carolina’s eventually wore down a Bulls team that needed an overtime period to get past Marquette in a first round win Friday and relied heavily on its starters Sunday.
That was crystal clear in the second half as USC deployed its all-star bench unit (which scores 45.5% of the team’s points) and outscored USF 43-16 in that span.
South Carolina (34-0) got great games from its top two scorers; guard Zia Cooke had a game-high 21 points and forward Aliyah Boston was, once again, efficient with 11 points, 11 rebounds, two assists and two blocks.
Guard Elena Tsineke had a team-high 20 points for USF, which ended the season at 27-7. The 27 wins tied for the most in a single season in program history.
South Carolina extends lead in Q3
USC leads USF 52-36 after three quarters.
One of South Carolina’s best stretches of the game came early in the third quarter with a 6-0 run over 1:15 of game time. The last of those three buckets, a twisting layup by Zia Cooke after an excellent outlet pass catch, put USC up 39-31 (its largest lead of the game) and forced a USF timeout.
That ultimately folded into a 13-2 scoring run that sent Colonial Life Arena into a frenzy and allowed South Carolina to pull away in the third quarter after a tightly contested first half.
Cooke, who tied for the team lead with 11 points in a first round win over Norfolk State, has 18 points on 7-16 shooting. Forward Aliyah Boston has nine points and 10 rebounds, and six other players have scored between 2 and 6 points apiece for USC.
Aliyah Boston goes to locker room
Reigning national player of the year Aliyah Boston subbed out of the game and went back to the South Carolina locker room midway through the third quarter. Boston was slightly hobbling down the court before subbing out and exited the game with nine points and 10 rebounds.
Boston returned to the bench at the end of the quarter.
South Carolina takes halftime lead
South Carolina leads South Florida 33-29 at halftime. This has been far from a standard game for the defending national champions — USF is refusing to go away.
There have been two ties and six lead changes already, and USF has led more of the game (9 minutes) than USC (7:50). The Gamecocks outscored the Bulls 21-13 in that quarter and opened up their largest lead of the game (seven points) midway through.
Guard Zia Cooke leads USC with nine points, and forward Aliyah Boston has nine points and seven rebounds in what’s rounding into quite the chippy game. Guard Elena Tsineke leads USF with 12 points.
USF leads after first quarter
South Florida leads South Carolina 16-12 after one quarter after ending the period on a impressive 6-0 run. The Bulls out-shot the Gamecocks from the field and went 3-6 on 3-pointers to rattle USC early.
It’s already clear South Florida is going all out against the nation’s No. 1 team: Star USF forward Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu had two fouls at the 6:05 mark of the first quarter but never subbed out.
Guard Elena Tsineke led USF in the quarter with seven points on seven shots. South Carolina was 5-14 (35.7%) from the floor, had five turnovers and only led for 1:21 of 10 minutes.
NCAA Tournament: How to watch Gamecocks
Who: No. 1 South Carolina (33-0) vs. No. 8 South Florida (27-6)
Where: Colonial Life Arena in Columbia
When: 1 p.m. Sunday (official tip is 1:06 p.m.)
TV: ABC
Stream: Via ESPN or the ESPN app
