Boston, South Carolina women overpower UCLA in March Madness

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’sdefenders chased ballhandlers and used their length to disrupt anyflow. Its bigs continued to snag just about every miss coming offthe rim.

It’s an unwavering combination, one that at times has theGamecocks’ push for a second straight national championshipflirting with a vibe of inevitability.

Three-time All-American Aliyah Boston had 14 boards and twoblocks while reigning national champion South Carolina turned inits latest overwhelming defense-and-rebounding-first performance tobeat UCLA 59-43 on Saturday in the Sweet 16 of the women’s NCAATournament.

Kamilla Cardoso added 10 points and Boston had eight for theGamecocks (35-0), the top overall tournament seed and the headlinerin the Greenville 1 Region. It marked South Carolina’s 41stconsecutive victory, securing the program’s sixth trip to the EliteEight under coach Dawn Staley.

“We definitely do a lot of (defensive) work in practice, whetherit’s ball-screen, whatever the case may be,” said Brea Beal, whohad 10 points for South Carolina. “I think for games like this whenoffensive scoring is very low, we definitely rely on our defense tokeep their scoring lower than ours.”

Three games into the NCAAs, the Gamecocks have yet to surrendermore than 45 points or let an opponent hit even 30% of its shots.They next face 2-seed Maryland in Monday’s regional final in arematch of the Gamecocks’ 81-56 win from the season’s openingweek.

It wasn’t an easy offensive operation for South Carolina, withUCLA sagging defensively to pack the paint in hopes of negating theGamecocks’ size advantage behind Boston. But South Carolina turnednearly every look into a difficult one for the fourth-seeded Bruins(27-10).

“It was the lowest point total that anyone had held them to in ahalf in the first half,” UCLA coach Cori Close said, “and wecouldn’t even take advantage of that because we were struggling somuch offensively.”

The Gamecocks won the first meeting with UCLA 73-64 in November,with the Bruins shooting 32% in that game. Things got worse thistime, with UCLA going shooting 29% — including 3 for 18 from3-point range.

“I feel like everything was rough,” UCLA guard Camryn Brownsaid, adding: “We were a little frantic out there.”

By the final horn, UCLA had committed 15 turnovers on 63possession, a nearly 25% rate.

Charisma Osborne scored 14 points to lead UCLA, which was in theSweet 16 for the eighth time. The Bruins were trying to reach theregional finals for the first time since 2018 and only the thirdtime in program history while pursuing their first Final Fourappearance.

But in a sign of what was to come, the Bruins kept missing shotsthat they needed for any chance at a stunning upset. Worse, theyfailed to grab even a few of those misses to keep possessions aliveearly, with the Gamecocks taking a 9-0 edge in offensive reboundsin the first half.

Meanwhile, the Gamecocks led 25-15 at halftime before matchingtheir game-long point total in the third quarter.

That included a couple of way-too-familiar sequences for Close.Twice the Gamecocks managed to lob a pass inside to the 6-foot-7Cardoso, who used her long arms to reach over 6-2 fronting defenderChristeen Iwuala and snag the ball for easy under-the-rim finishesin traffic.

Or there was Beal using her right hand to tap out a looserebound over Gabriela Jaquez before securing it, then dumping itimmediately inside to Victaria Saxton inside for a soft hook.

It was all the same often-demoralizing sequences that hasoverwhelmed teams all season, this time coming with the home-stateGamecocks as the main draw here in the new double-regionalformat.

They drew loud cheers from the crowd just for making their wayinto the locker-room tunnel during the Notre Dame-Maryland gamewith their game to follow. The roars returned as each player wholingered to wrap up pregame shootaround came off the court —several waving two arms high in acknowledgement — in a mostly fullarena.

The cheers were louder, of course, as the Gamecocks spent thefinal minutes closing out a win to advance again.

WORD OF THE DAY

The key for South Carolina’s offense was patience, and makingsure to keep working the ball to find seams inside.

“That’s something Coach emphasized at halftime,” Boston said.“She was like ... ’Just take our time, we’re taking great shots buttaking a split-second longer could help us out.”

CLASSY GESTURE

Staley showed a noteworthy bit of sportsmanship in the thirdquarter.

UCLA’s Emily Bessoir fell awkwardly after trying to beat Bostonto a rebound, and the Bruins forward was down on the baseline asthe Gamecocks took possession across half-court. But instead ofcontinuing to run the play 5-on-4, Staley burned a timeout andpointed for officials to tend to Bessoir at the far end.

“I think these kind of moments in games, they reveal people’scharacter,” Close said, “and I think it just revealed a layer ofher character, of what she deems most important. And that’s alwaysthe kids.”

Staley said: “It was the right thing to do to make sure theyoung lady was OK.”