COLUMBIA, S.C. — Bree Hall had 11 points and Chloe Kitts scored all 10 of hers in the second half as No. 1 seed South Carolina pulled away after trailing at halftime to beat ninth-seeded Indiana 64-53 on Sunday and reach the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16 for the 11th straight time.
The SEC’s Gamecocks (32-3), the reigning national champions and the top team in Regional 2, will take on either fourth-seeded Maryland (24-7) or fifth-seeded Alabama (24-8) next weekend at Legacy Arena in Birmingham. Those teams play Monday night.
Not that anyone at Colonial Life Arena was locking South Carolina into that Sweet 16 game after a dreadful first-half performance in which the Gamecocks shot just 10-of-29 and trailed the Big Ten’s Hoosiers 26-25 at the break. South Carolina came out on fire in the third quarter, though, hitting nine of its first 10 shots for a 20-7 run to take control.
Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said it was a cacophony of player voices during halftime, all identifying what the players had not done the first two quarters and how to get back to being themselves after the break.
“It’s not like a board meeting where there’s one person talking at a time,” Staley said, smiling. “It is chaos.”
Whatever the process, it certainly worked for South Carolina, which hit shot after shot to move in front. When Kitts’ 3-pointer put her team ahead 38-30, she held her arms up in celebration as the cheers rained down.
Hall’s 3-pointer closed the surge to take the game in hand and improve to 18-1 in their past four NCAA tournaments. The run has included NCAA titles in 2022 as well as last year. The team lost to Iowa in the national semifinals in 2023.
“We were all just missing our easy layups, and there wasn’t really flow in game,” Kitts said. “Then the second half, we turned it around.”
Shay Ciezki had 12 points to lead Indiana (20-13), which couldn’t get closer than seven points the rest of the way.
Indiana guard Chloe Moore-McNeil said the third quarter, during which the Hoosiers got outscored 26-14 and had five of their 16 turnovers, was a mixture of South Carolina stepping up and her team making errors it hadn’t in the first half.
“Obviously, they’re the No. 1 team in the country in terms of transition offense and capitalizing on people’s turnovers,” Moore-McNeil said. “I think, yeah, they did have pressure on us, but at the same time, I think we did have some careless mistakes.”
The Hoosiers made sure they wouldn’t get blown out early, but they didn’t have enough to handle the deep, talented reigning champions for a full 40 minutes.
Still, the Gamecocks got a wake-up call from Indiana for a second straight year. After sleeping on a big lead in last year’s Sweet 16 before a 79-75 win, they struggled with the Hoosiers the first two quarters before pulling away. Count on Staley to use Sunday’s poor first half as a lesson to this team going forward.
Sania Feagin added 10 points for South Carolina, which improved to 18-0 in the tournament when playing at home.
Indiana coach Teri Moren said it may be time to reopen discussions about the women’s tournament going to full neutral sites like men’s basketball. Moren said she has felt that advantage, having hosted first- and second-round games at Indiana’s Assembly Hall the previous two years.
“I think we’ve got to get to a point where we sort of mirror what the guys do and have neutral sites because matchups matter,” she said. “But home-court advantage matters. Again, I’ve been a recipient.
“So I think that’s going to be something that may change as we move forward with women’s basketball.”
Duke 59, Oregon 53
DURHAM, N.C. — Ashlon Jackson scored 14 of her 20 points in the third quarter to power No. 2 seed Duke to a victory over 10th-seeded Oregon.
Duke (28-7) played without leading scorer Toby Fournier, the Atlantic Coast Conference rookie of the year who has per-game averages 13.4 points and 5.2 rebounds. The 6-foot-2 forward was dealing with an illness, ESPN reported.
Jackson shot 5-of-9 on 3-pointers and had four rebounds, while Reigan Richardson added 13 points and Delaney Thomas had 12.
In her eighth career game against Duke, former North Carolina guard Deja Kelly finished with 20 points on 8-of-18 shooting for the Ducks (20-12). Phillipina Kyei had 14 points and 13 rebounds for Oregon.
Duke advances to the Regional 2 semifinals in Birmingham and will face either No. 3 seed North Carolina (28-7), its ACC rival from just down the road, or No. 6 seed West Virginia (25-7) of the Big 12. Those teams meet in the second round Monday.
BIRMINGHAM REGIONAL 3
Notre Dame 76, Michigan 55
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Hannah Hidalgo scored 21 points and No. 3 seed Notre Dame routed No. 6 seed Michigan.
Notre Dame (28-5) advanced to the Sweet 16 for the fourth consecutive season. The ACC’s Fighting Irish will have a rematch in Birmingham next weekend against Big 12 champion TCU (33-3), the region’s No. 2 seed. The Horned Frogs defeated Notre Dame in the Cayman Islands in November.
Liatu King turned in a double-double with 18 points and 15 rebounds for Notre Dame, while Sonia Citron scored 16 points. Olivia Miles started for the Irish on Sunday despite incurring an ankle injury in Friday’s 106-54 victory against Stephen F. Austin in the first round. She had eight points, five assists and four rebounds against Michigan (23-11).
The Big Ten’s Wolverines were led by 20 points from Olivia Olson and 17 from Syla Swords.
TCU 85, Louisville 70
FORT WORTH, Texas — Agnes Emma-Nnopu scored 23 points with four 3-pointers, Hailey Van Lith had a double-double against one of her former teams, and TCU advanced to its first Sweet 16 with a win over seventh-seeded Louisville.
Van Lith had 16 points and 10 assists after going to a Final Four and two other Elite Eight games with Louisville from 2021-23. She played in her 19th tourney game, the most among active players, after going to another Elite Eight with LSU last season.
Sedona Prince had 19 points and Donovyn Hunter scored 18, including three 3-pointers in a 17-0 run that put the Horned Frogs (33-3) ahead to stay.
Jayda Curry had a career-high 41 points for the ACC’s Cardinals (22-11). She already had 15 of those when when she made a jumper that put them up 17-13 with 2:57 left in the first quarter before TCU’s game-turning run when Van Lith made the go-ahead basket.
Before winning twice at home when hosting for the first time, the Horned Frogs hadn’t even made the NCAA field in 15 years — and last won a tourney game in 2006. They were 1-17 in conference games two years ago before Mark Campbell became their coach; he has since brought in 11 transfers, most with NCAA experience.
SPOKANE REGIONAL 4
Kansas State 80, Kentucky 79
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Temira Poindexter hit a corner 3-pointer with 56 seconds left in overtime — her eighth long-ranger of the game — and fifth-seeded Kansas State of the Big 12 dodged four misses by No. 4 seed Kentucky in the closing seconds to beat the host Wildcats in the second round.
Kentucky star Georgia Amoore missed a jumper with 21 seconds left, a 3-pointer with 16 seconds remaining and then a baseline layup at the buzzer. Amelia Haslett also missed a 3 that would have put the SEC’s Wildcats (23-8) ahead at Memorial Coliseum.
Poindexter missed her first six shots but finished 8-of-15 beyond the arc to score 24 points. Serena Sundell added 19 points, including a turnaround jumper with eight seconds left in the fourth quarer to force overtime, and Ayoka Lee scored 16.
Kansas State (28-7) will face either top-seeded Southern California (29-3) or No. 9 seed Mississippi State (22-11) in the Sweet 16 next weekend in Spokane, Washington. Those teams meet Monday in Los Angeles.
SPOKANE REGIONAL 1
Ole Miss 69, Baylor 63
WACO, Texas — Madison Scott scored 14 points, including a tiebreaking jumper in the final minute, and fifth-seeded Ole Miss advanced to the Sweet 16 by beating the fourth-seeded Baylor Bears on their home court.
Sira Thienou, playing with gauze stuffed into one of her nostrils, scored 16 points as the SEC’s Rebels (22-10) won twice in Waco three years after a first-round loss that was the first tournament victory for South Dakota. Ole Miss beat No. 12 seed Ball State on Friday at Baylor.
Aaronette Vonleh scored 16 points for the Big 12’s Bears (28-8), who failed to advance to the Sweet 16 from their arena for the second time in four seasons under coach Nicki Collen. They had done so eight consecutive times under Kim Mulkey, who won three national championships at Baylor before moving on to LSU.
Ole Miss, which had the resumé to be a tournament host on opening weekend, settled for its highest seed since 1994 and has made the most of it so far.
UCLA 84, Richmond 67
LOS ANGELES — Lauren Betts had 30 points and 14 rebounds, and overall No. 1 seed UCLA defeated No. 8 seed Richmond at Pauley Pavilion.
The Big Ten’s Bruins (32-2) broke open a close game in the third quarter after the eighth-seeded Spiders (28-7) scored the last seven points before halftime to pull into a 36-36 tie.
The teams traded 3-pointers to open the third. After that, UCLA poured it on against its opponent from the Atlantic 10, hitting four more 3-pointers and outscoring the Spiders 29-7 to lead 65-43 going into the fourth.
UCLA stepped up its defense, too, forcing the Spiders into missing 12 of 15 shots and going 5 1/2 minutes without scoring. They had no answer for the 6-7 Betts, who scored 10 points and finished 14-of-17 from the floor.