No. 5 South Carolina women hold off Vanderbilt, pull away to win 84-63 in SEC quarterfinals

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Chloe Kitts had 25 points and 10 rebounds and No. 5 South Carolina held off a furious second-half rally from Vanderbilt to win 84-63 on Friday in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals.

MiLaysia Fulwiley scored 15 off the bench and Sania Feagin added 13 points for South Carolina (28-3), which has won five straight.

Coach Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks, the Southeastern Conference’s top seed, appeared plenty motivated to win a third straight tournament title. They came out of the gates strong, shooting a blistering 67% from the field in the first half to build a 48-23 lead at the break.

But the Commodores, behind stars Mikayla Blakes and Khamil Pierre, would battle back to cut the lead to five with 4:22 left. The Gamecocks would regroup and outscore the Commodores 16-0 the rest of the way to move on to a semifinal matchup with the No. 12 Kentucky/No. 10 Oklahoma winner.

Vanderbilt (22-10), which knocked off 18th-ranked Tennessee 84-76 on Thursday to reach the quarterfinals, got 20 points from Blakes and 17 from Pierre.

Takeaways

Vanderbilt: Was outscored 58-28 in the paint and outrebounded 42-28.

South Carolina: The Gamecocks’ depth proved to be too much for Vanderbilt, with their bench outscoring the Commodores 33-4.

Key moment

Fulwiley provided a huge momentum swing at the end of the first quarter when she came up with a defensive rebound and beat two defenders down the floor for a fastbreak layup with 16 seconds left, then came up with a steal and pulled up from beyond the 3-point arc to beat the buzzer. That gave the Gamecocks a 24-15 lead and ignited a 17-2 run.

Key stat

South Carolina finished the game on a 16-0 run.

Up next

Vanderbilt will await its seed in the NCAA Tournament.