Cincinnati Falls at South Carolina, 75-56

Valerie King

Columbia, S.C.---South Carolina scored 25 unanswered points over a eight and a half minute stretch of the second half to break open a close game and end the Cincinnati women’s basketball team’s season, with a 75-56 win over the Bearcats in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Monday night.

South Carolina, the number three-seed improves it’s record to 24-6 andadvances to the Sweet 16 where they will meet seventh-seeded Drake. The most successful season in Cincinnati program history ends with a mark of 27-5.

The Lady Gamecocks held UC to 32 percent shooting from the floor and forced the Bearcats into 18 turnovers, the team’s third highest total of the year. On the offensive end, South Carolina placed three players in double figures in scoring led by Teresa Geter with 21 points. Shaunzinski Gortman added 19 and Tatyana Troina 14 for the Lady Gamecocks. Valerie King and K.B. Sharp led Cincinnati with 13 points apiece, despite shooting a combined nine for 30 from the field.

“We played our hearts out tonight,” said Bearcats head coach Laurie Pirtle. I give credit to South Carolina, they played a good game. But I give credit to our kids. They are a good team and we will be back next year.”

Trailing by three coming out of the locker room, freshman Debbie Merrill drew the Bearcats to within one with a basket at 18:45 of the second half. Buckets by USC’s Jocelyn Penn and Gortman gave the hosts a five-point advantage with two minutes gone by.

The Bearcats fought back as they had so many times during the course of the game, getting within one on another field goal by Merrill and Laura Wilder’s first basket of the night.

South Carolina scored three of the game’s next four baskets to give themselves a 38-32 lead. Sharp netted the only UC points during the span on a jumper with 15:07 remaining.
Cincinnati responded with a 9-0 run over the next two and a half minutes that put the Bearcats ahead for the final time, 41-40 with 12:04 remaining. Four points by King highlighted the spurt, with Wilder adding a three and Tammy Douglass a basket for the Bearcats.

But the entire complexion of the game would change from that point on as UC would go nearly eight minutes without a basket, falling behind 65-41, as South Carolina rattled off 25 straight points. The South Carolina run started with Troina knocking down a three and the Lady Gamecocks retaining possession following a UC foul away from the ball during the shot. Troina knocked down a jumper just three seconds later for a five-point swing. Geter led the way for USC scoring 12 of the 25 points, while Troina added eight and Gortman five.

During the eight-minute span, UC shot zero for nine from the field and committed four of the team’s six second-half turnovers.

Cincinnati finally got on the scoreboard with 4:08 remaining on a basket by Sharp, but it was too late for the Bearcats. Two charity tosses by Gortman with 1:46 remaining gave South Carolina it’s largest lead of the game at 25. Over the final three minutes of play, King finally found her three-point range, hitting her only triple of the night in seven attempts and adding another basket later. Merlenea Dozier made the most of her limited playing time by scoring the final points of the game on a three-pointer with 20 seconds left.

Poor shooting and turnovers plagued both squads in the first half as the two teams combined for 23 turnovers. The Bearcats shot just 24 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes, while the host Lady Gamecocks mustered a 38 percent shooting clip.

South Carolina opened the scoring on a lay-up by Geter 18 seconds in. The Bearcats tied it on Merrill’s first bucket of the game. The two teams traded baskets over the next minute to even the game at four just over 60 seconds into the contest.

Back-to-back baskets by South Carolina’s Petra Ujhelyi and Penn gave the Lady Gamecocks a four-point lead. But UC responded with three-pointers on three consecutive trips down the court to grab their largest lead, five, with four and a half minutes gone. Brittani Young started the spurt with a trey and Sharp hit two triples in a row for the Bearcats.

After two buckets by South Carolina, Douglass knocked down a pair of free throws that stretched the UC advantage back to four. The Lady Gamecocks tied it on back-to-back baskets by Troina and Gortman, before Sharp answered with her third trey of the half at 11:20.

But Sharp’s triple would be the last UC points for over six minutes, as the Bearcats hit a drought and South Carolina responded with nine unanswered points that gave the hosts a six-point edge with 5:18 to go.

A Carolyn Alexander lay-up broke the Bearcat drought and two more Douglass charity tosses drew UC back to within two. After a Geter basket, King converted two free throws for the last Cincinnati points of the half. A basket by Ines Ajanovic with 1:38 remaining gave South Carolina a 27-24 halftime edge.