Elite! South Carolina rides hot shooting to Sweet 16 victory over Georgia Tech

South Carolina women’s basketball is officially elite once more.

Shooting a crisp 56% percent from the field and 57% on 3-pointers, the No. 1 seed Gamecocks overpowered No. 5 seed Georgia Tech 76-65 in the NCAA tournament Sweet 16 on Sunday, making it back to the Elite Eight for the fourth time under coach Dawn Staley.

“I just thought we did a great job in just winning the game, doing whatever we needed to do to win the game no matter how it looked,” Staley said. “But fortunately for us, we got some shots to fall and got some shots to fall from 3.”

They advance to face No. 6 seed Texas at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

It was not just the usual stars who propelled USC on Sunday — sophomore forward Laeticia Amihere scored 15 points off the bench, while junior forward Victaria Saxton had 12. Sophomore guard Brea Beal added eight points.

“The bench, it’s a big part of who we are, and being able to go deep in our bench is going to be so important, especially down the stretch right now,” Amihere said.

Sophomore guard Zia Cooke was the only one of South Carolina’s usual top three scorers to hit double figures, tallying 17 points.

Making just their second Sweet 16 appearance, Georgia Tech didn’t make things easy for the Gamecocks, coming back from a 10-point deficit just before halftime and a 17-point disadvantage in the third quarter to keep things tight and force South Carolina to keep the pressure on.

In the end, though, the Yellow Jackets simply couldn’t compete with USC’s depth and shooting, both inside and out — the Gamecocks outscoring them in the paint, 44 to 32, and from 3, 24 to 18.

“South Carolina shot the three ball a lot better than we thought they would today,” Georgia Tech coach Nell Fortner said. “That came as a bit of a surprise. To hold them to seven offensive rebounds, to only let them get to ... 6 of 6 in the free-throw line. We did some things well, but we just didn’t have quite enough to stop them from scoring in the paint. They killed us with points in the paint.”

Now, the Gamecocks have the chance to play for the first Final Four since 2017 after last year’s top-ranked squad saw its chance taken away by the COVID-19 pandemic.

3 OBSERVATIONS

1. Quiet game from Boston

All-American forward Aliyah Boston, who had come up huge in the first two rounds of the tournament, was held entirely scoreless in the first half Sunday, with two fouls limiting her playing time.

At the start of the third quarter, she did come out strong, forcing her way inside and tallying seven consecutive points in less than two minutes. After that, however, the Yellow Jackets continued to swarm her inside, and she scored just two more points the rest of the game for a final stat line of nine points and five rebounds, not quite up to her usual lofty standards.

“The thing with Aaliyah is, she’s an all-around player,” Amihere said. “I mean look at her accolades — it’s not only scoring, it’s defense as well. So although she’s not giving us some buckets on the board, she’s doing so much more to give our team that boost that we need.”

2. Bench dominance

With Boston staying quiet in the first half, it was South Carolina’s reserves who stepped up to ensure the Gamecocks stayed ahead. In particular, junior guard Destiny Littleton drilled two nice 3-pointers, and sophomore forward Laeticia Amihere had 10 points in the first half alone.

Those two combined to finish with 21 points, far outstripping Georgia Tech, which got just three points from its bench. That dominance was especially impressive as the Gamecocks are without their usual top bench player in senior guard LeLe Grissett, who is missing the tournament with a leg injury.

“I just think there’s an extra effort of concentration, there’s an extra effort of players knowing that they’re going to play,” Staley said. “Like (Amihere) knows she’s going to play and she’s going to play some pretty significant minutes for us. Destiny Littleton knows that she’s going to play. So, I think they can relax, and once they get in the game, they can be who they are, the best version of who they are, and it couldn’t happen at a more crucial time with LeLe going out.”

3. Hot from 3

South Carolina’s advantage inside is well-known and documented. Where the Gamecocks are not usually very proficient is from 3 — they have one of the lowest 3-point rates in the country and made just 32.1% of those shots going into Sunday. In the first two rounds, they were even worse, going just 4 of 29.

“I mean, I almost was feeling bad for our players because we haven’t hit very many 3-point baskets,” Staley said. “And we’ve taken good shots, but they just didn’t fall.”

But things were different against Georgia Tech. Cooke started it by hitting two early 3s as part of an early 8-0 run, and she came up with another in the fourth quarter to disrupt a 9-0 Tech run that had tightened the game significantly. All told, the Gamecocks shot 8 of 14 from beyond the arc for a 57.1% rate, their second best percentage on the season.

“I think if we can get that going, it gives us an extra layer of confidence and an extra layer of something that our opponents have to guard,” Staley said.

NEXT USC BASKETBALL GAME

What: NCAA tournament Elite Eight

Who: No. 1 seed South Carolina vs. No. 6 seed Texas

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

Watch: ESPN

Where: Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas

This story was originally published March 28, 2021 at 12:14 PM.

Greg Hadley

The State

Covering University of South Carolina football, women’s basketball and baseball for GoGamecocks and The State, along with Columbia city council and other news.