South Carolina survives, advances past Maryland in Sweet 16

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (FOX Carolina) - The March Madness term ‘survive and advance’ certainly applied to South Carolina’s NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 matchup with Maryland in which they trailed by seven points in the third quarter but rallied to win 71-67.

For 1-seed South Carolina, MiLaysia Fulwiley was fancy, fantastic and effective down the stretch scoring a game-high 23 points on 9-for-17 shooting off the bench while Chloe Kitts added 15 points on 6-for-11 shooting and 11 rebounds. For 4-seed Maryland, four players scored in double figures. Both teams shot less than 40% from the field.

Chloe Kitts started the scoring for South Carolina with 10 points and 5 rebounds in just the first six minutes of the first quarter. The rest of the first quarter was controlled by Fulwiley who had 7 points in the quarter as she and Kitts were the only two Gamecocks to score in the opening period.

The Gamecocks led 17-16 after the first quarter, and the Terrapins continued playing the defending national champions tough.

Maryland held a couple of 4-point leads in the second quarter and led 33-31 at halftime. Surprisingly, that marked the second consecutive game South Carolina has trailed at halftime after being behind by 1 point at halftime against 9-seed Indiana in the NCAA Tournament second round Sunday in Columbia.

The Gamecocks fell behind by 7 points in the 3rd quarter, but they rallied to take a 2-point lead, 52-50 by the end of the period.

Maryland retook the lead 58-57 with less than 6 minutes left in the game and the game was back and forth from there with several lead changes.

4-seed Maryland’s season is over in the Sweet 16 and 1-seed South Carolina advances to play 2-seed Duke, which beat 3-seed North Carolina 47-38 in the other Sweet 16 matchup, at 1 p.m. Sunday in the Elite 8 in Birmingham. After appearing in its 11th Sweet 16 in a row, South Carolina advances to its fifth consecutive Elite 8.