Hall, Kitts rally top-seeded South Carolina to Sweet 16 in 64-53 March Madness win over Indiana

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Bree Hall had 11 points and Chloe Kitts scored all her 10 points in the second half as top seed South Carolina pulled away after trailing at halftime to beat ninth-seeded Indiana 64-53 on Sunday in the women’s NCAA Tournament and reach the Sweet 16 for the 11th straight time.

The Gamecocks (32-3) will take on either fourth-seeded Maryland or fifth-seeded Alabama in the Birmingham 2 Regional next week. Those teams play Monday night.

Not that anyone at Colonial Life Arena was locking South Carolina into that game after a dreadful first-half performance where they shot just 10 of 29 and trailed the Hoosiers 26-25 at the break. But the Gamecocks came out on fire in the third quarter, hitting nine of their 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, who 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 and 2024. The team lost to Iowa in the national semifinals in 2023.

“We were all just missing our easy lay-ups, and there wasn’t really flow in game” the first two quarters, Kitts said. “Then the second half, we turned it around.”

Indiana couldn’t get closer than seven points the rest of the way.

Shay Ciezki had 12 points to lead Indiana.

Sania Feagin added 10 points for South Carolina, which improved to 18-0 in home NCAA Tournament games.

Indiana guard Chloe Moore-McNeil said the third quarter, where 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.”

Takeaways

Indiana: The Hoosiers made sure they wouldn’t get blown out early, but didn’t have enough to handle the deep, talented defending champions over 40 minutes.

South Carolina: 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 coach Dawn Staley to use that poor first half as a lesson to this team going forward.

Evening it out

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 past 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,” she continued.

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