The South Carolina Gamecocks’ defense absolutely wrecked the Baylor Bears’ vaunted offense on Friday night, sealing the program’s first trip to the Elite Eight by a final score of 70-50. Sindarius Thornwell led all the night’s scorers with 24 points, and Carolina out-rebounded the Bears, 41-36.
March Madness bracket update: South Carolina blasts Baylor in Sweet 16 to move into Elite Eight
The rowdy Gamecocks are off to the Elite Eight.
Baylor, who was ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25 for a single week this season, found itself stymied by South Carolina’s defense all night, giving up turnovers and missing shots from close range to seal the deal from Madison Square Garden.
South Carolina entered the Sweet 16 averaging 73.1 points per game, good for seventh in the SEC. The Gamecocks seeded deep into the SEC tournament but failed early on against Alabama. Baylor, for its part, also fell out of the Big 12 tournament to a lesser foe as a No. 3 seed in the conference tilt, dropping an ugly loss to Kansas State, 70-64. The Bears came into Friday’s bout averaging 73.5 points per game — with both teams allowing 65 — which yielded a tight matchup with Cocky, at least on paper.
Baylor started the game 1-of-9 from the field, harried thoroughly by Carolina’s defense all over the floor. Hampered further by sloppiness and turnovers on offense, the Bears took a lot of time to get going, and Carolina’s 8-1 record when holding teams to less than 40 percent shooting was out in full force. Aided by a 7-0 run midway through the first half, however, Baylor found itself sitting on a two-point lead, 15-13, with 10 minutes to go in the opening period.
With both teams averaging the same number of points scored and allowed per game, it seemed more or less ordained that this matchup would prevent either club from gaining any separation to speak of, and indeed, the game-flow skewed more to the defensive side. Carolina forced eight turnovers in the first half, while Baylor forced six. Three-point shooting was at a premium, with both teams combining for 38 percent in the game.
Cocky did gain a piece of separation late in the first half, pulling out to a 31-15 lead astride an 18-0 run. That stretch included poor shooting from Baylor and creative offense from the Gamecocks. It also didn’t help Baylor’s cause that it failed to score a point for over six minutes. By that point, the Bears’ shooting percentage was a dismal 22 percent from the field, and they had no answer for South Carolina’s stifling defense.
South Carolina owned a 37-22 advantage at halftime.
Carolina further blasted out of recess to grab a 46-26 lead on 3-of-4 shooting and some seriously poor looks from Baylor to start the period. That continued the first half’s trend, in which Carolina shot better than 51 percent from the field, and the onslaught therein bucked the Bears wholly out of their game. By the seven-minute mark, Cocky had a 55-38 advantage, and the #SECBasketballFever onslaught was fully engaged.
Down the stretch, Baylor couldn’t match Carolina’s ugly ball, and the Gamecocks’ defense kept up their pressure to force either turnovers or bad shots. South Carolina reached its largest lead of the game with four minutes remaining, legging out a 63-41 lead.
South Carolina will meet the winner of Friday night’s Wisconsin-Florida matchup on Sunday in the Elite Eight. The Gamecocks have already knocked off Duke in this year’s tournament, who previously overcame UNC in the ACC tournament. Such is NCAA tournament basketball.
See More:
