Dallas Bound! Gamecocks advance to Final Four

On3 imageby:Chris Wellbaum03/27/23

ChrisWellbaum

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South Carolina got a huge game from Aliyah Boston to clinch its third consecutive Final Four appearance with an 86-75 win over Maryland.

Boston scored South Carolina’s first four points of the game and never let up. She finished with 22 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, and two blocks and was named the region’s Most Outstanding Player. 

“Not a lot of teams can say they’re able to do this,” Boston said. “So for us to be able to do it feels really good, and it’s such a blessing we won’t ever take for granted.”

Boston was relentless, scoring 12 points in the first half and 10 in the second to help the Gamecocks slowly put distance between themselves and the Terrapins. 

“She was great. We made some adjustments to some (so) we weren’t going to sit here on a block and just allow people to just play physical and guard her with two and three people,” Dawn Staley said. “We moved her around, and because we moved her around, she was a moving target. It was hard for them to double her because they weren’t doubling her from the perimeter. She made some incredible drives. She was just all over the place. I thought we did a great job just allowing us to play through her, no matter where she was on the court. But she was due. She was due for one of these big games.”

After a defensive clinic in the Sweet 16 against UCLA, South Carolina had to rely on its offense against Maryland. 

The Terrapins shot 50% from the floor, just the second team to hit over 50% against South Carolina this season and just the fifth to shoot 40% or more. So the Gamecocks settled for winning the game on the offensive end. 

Maryland tried to make up for its lack of size by speeding up the game. The Terrapins ran when they had the ball and trapped on defense, often fronting the post. It worked early, and a 12-0 run in the first quarter gave Maryland a 19-13 lead.

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South Carolina settled down in the second quarter, especially in the paint. They rushed layups early, sped up by the Maryland defense, but as the Gamecocks adapted they began to rely on their size advantage.

South Carolina got Maryland into foul trouble and retook the lead thanks to a 9-2 run and led 38-30 at halftime.

“Maryland came on and played extremely fast, just moving the ball up and down the floor. They were extremely physical, and I thought it just took us a while to get our footing, to really make adjustments to how they were playing us,” Staley said. “Once we did, we basically just fought aggression with aggression, because they were really aggressive. And just over time, I just thought our depth and our ability to go inside and our ability to apply a little pressure to make it a little difficult for them to straight-line drive us or just to get wide open perimeter shots.”

The Gamecocks pulled away in the second half thanks to relentless effort in the paint. South Carolina was plus-22 rebounding, plus-16 in second-chance points, and scored 46 points in the paint.

“When you’re bringing off 6’7″ and 6’3″ and another point guard to a backup point guard to another wing to the size that you have inside, and clearly you saw that when it impacted us with our foul trouble that we didn’t have that kind of depth,” Brenda Frese said. “It’s a big reason obviously why they’re undefeated and why they’re the defending national champions.”

It was more than just Boston doing work inside. Zia Cooke added 18 points and a career-high eight rebounds, constantly driving and attacking the rim. 

“Coach kept telling us that we see how they’re playing so we’ve got to make sure we’re going the same thing,” Cooke said. “But they definitely were getting downhill on us, and we just wanted to make sure we did the same thing, made lay-ups and just became great defenders.”

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Brea Beal added a season-high 16 points plus seven rebounds, six assists, three steals, and two blocks. She was 2-3 from three, including a three-pointer about halfway through the fourth that seemed to put the game out of reach.

Diamond Miller led Maryland with 24 points, but she battled first half foul trouble that limited her to just seven minutes in the first half.

That was a recurring problem for the Terrapins. Abby Meyers, who almost single-handedly kept Maryland in the game in the first half, played just seven minutes in the second half and fouled out with 7:17 left. All 14 of her points came in the first half.

“My role in that was to take on the scoring load and just try and help my team in any way possible,” Meyers said. “I was fortunate enough that I was able to beat my players off the bounce, off the dribble, and make some shots. But couldn’t help the team out in the second half, unfortunately.” 

Faith Masonius also fouled out, and Miller and Shyanne Sellers each finished with four fouls. 

“You felt like you were coaching with one arm behind your back,” Frese said. “You really had to kind of try to get a feel. When they were calling so many of them, you were kind of just juggling who you had on the bench and back and forth, and it kind of felt like that all game. You’re just trying to see who you could keep in the longest.”

South Carolina led by as much as 19 in the fourth quarter when Staley started pulling her starters. Maryland finished the game on an 8-0 run to make it look closer than it was.

Notes:

The All-Region team was Abby Meyers, Diamond Miller, Zia Cooke, Brea Beal, and Aliyah Boston. … My all-region vote was identical. … South Carolina had six blocks, giving them 321 for the season. They need four more to break the NCAA single-season record of 324, set by UConn in 2014. … Aliyah Boston braids report: Boston continued to wear her “tournament garnet” braids. … Dawn Staley fit report: Staley wore a black Louis Vuitton sweatsuit. … Announced attendance was 11,144. … South Carolina’s next game is Friday against Iowa in the national semifinal.

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