Ticket to Tampa: South Carolina WBB downs Duke to reach NCAA Final Four
There must’ve been some March magic in the air at Legacy Arena on Sunday afternoon.
No. 1 seed South Carolina clinched a trip to a fifth consecutive Final Four with a 54-50 win against second-seeded Duke in the Elite Eight game of the NCAA Tournament.
The win comes nearly 10 years to the date after South Carolina punched a ticket to its first Final Four.
The site of that first Final Four back in 2015? Tampa, Florida. The site of this year’s Final Four? Right back in Tampa.
Tampa bound!
This will be the seventh trip to the Final Four for the South Carolina women’s basketball program.
The Gamecocks (34-3) will play Friday against the winner of Monday’s Elite Eight game in Birmingham, Alabama.
South Carolina will face No. 1 Texas, which will mark the fourth time the teams have played this season.
Back and forth (again)
South Carolina played each of its opponents in Birmingham very closely.
Although the Gamecocks didn’t trail going into halftime like they did in the second round against Indiana or like they did in the Sweet 16 against Maryland, South Carolina and Duke were locked in step with each other.
South Carolina built up an 11-point lead in the second quarter but saw it quickly evaporate with a run from Duke in the final minutes of the second half. The Gamecocks led 26-22 at the half.
Duke opened the second half on a run of its own and even outscored the Gamecocks 20-12 in the third quarter. The Blue Devils led 42-38 at the end of the third quarter, their longest lead of the game to that point.
“I thought they forced us into taking some bad shots that almost ended our season,” Staley said of Duke. “Really. Especially in the first half. And then the second half, I thought we tried to get the ball where it needed to go. Sometimes they disrupted that. But at the end of the day, I thought when we had to make plays off of broken sets, we did it in the fourth quarter, and I think that was the difference between them coming back and building the lead and us bearing down and making sure we win those broken play battles.”
South Carolina reclaimed the lead after starting the fourth quarter on an 8-0 run but never led by more than four points.
Duke cut the lead to just two with as little as 30 seconds left but airballed a 3-point attempt with seven seconds left, turning the ball over.
Discrepancy on the glass
South Carolina struggled on the glass all day against Duke.
The Blue Devils outrebounded the Gamecocks 41-30 in the game, including by a 19-6 margin on the offensive glass.
Duke was able to log 12 second-chance points.
Impact players
Sania Feagin and Chloe Kitts have dominated for South Carolina all postseason long and continued their hot streak on Sunday.
Feagin led South Carolina in points, rebounds and assists for most of the matchup with Duke. She finished with 12 points and eight rebounds.
Kitts had 14 points and four rebounds. She hit two clinching free throws in the game’s final moments.
“I got the ball and I went to the line and I was just taking a deep breath,” Kitts said of the free throws. “I told myself that my coach wanted me to have the ball at the end of the game because she knew I could make my free throws, and I told myself that I’m really good at basketball and I made both of them.”
Toby Fournier kept Duke in the game. The forward scored a game-high 18 points.
Kitts, Feagin and USC guard MiLaysia Fulwiley were named to the all-region team along with Duke’s Ashlon Jackson and Fournier. Kitts was named the region’s most outstanding player (she also won SEC Tournament MVP earlier this month).
NCAA women’s Final Four schedule
- Game 1: South Carolina vs. Texas, 7 p.m. Friday (ESPN)
- Game 2: UCLA vs. UConn, 9 p.m. Friday (ESPN)
- Title game: Teams TBD, 3 p.m. Sunday (ABC)
- Where: Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida
- TV: ESPN
- Stream: ESPN app
This story was originally published March 30, 2025 at 3:11 PM.
