The South Carolina Gamecocks will have their biggest test of the tournament vs Maryland.

After defeating Indiana in the round of 32, South Carolina had to wait 24 hours to see who their opponent would be in the Sweet 16. Following a 111-108 double overtime thriller victory over Alabama on Monday, Maryland emerged as the next challenger for the Gamecocks.

Down 64-55 entering the fourth quarter, Maryland had some work to do to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes alive. The Terrapins would go on to outscore Alabama 56-44 over the fourth quarter and overtime to advance to the Sweet 16.

The Gamecocks had a bit of a scare in round two vs the Indiana Hoosiers as they were down at half time and down by eight points at one point. However, the Terrapins will be the biggest test of the tournament so far for the Gamecocks.

Maryland took Alabama to overtime in the second round and despite a 45 point effort from Alabama’s Sarah Ashlee Barker, the Tide fell short.

The Terrapins had some big tests during their regular season, much like South Carolina did. They picked up wins against Duke, Michigan State, Iowa, Minnesota, and Ohio State, all of which were ranked teams at the time of playing them. They did however go 0-3 against top 10 teams with losses to UCLA, USC and Texas.

South Carolina and Maryland met on the court last season in a regular season game back in November of 2023. That game saw the Gamecocks dominate to the tune of a 114-76 victory. Seven Gamecocks finished in double digits on the day, with Te-Hina Paopao leading the way with 14 points.

Tip off for South Carolina’s Sweet 16 matchup against Maryland is set for 5:00 pm (ET) on ESPN.

Join the community:

You can follow us for future coverage by clicking “Follow” on the top right-hand corner of the page. Also, be sure to follow us on X at @GamecocksDigest and on Facebook!

You Might Also Like:

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — It’s a line that dates back about two decades, to Maryland’s 2006 run to the national title.

“Overtime is our time,” coach Brenda Frese said.

The Terrapins pulled off another extra-period escape Monday, outlasting Alabama 111-108 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Sarah Te-Biasu made a tying 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter, then scored eight of her 26 points in the second OT to help fourth-seeded Maryland advance to the Sweet 16.

The Terps (25-7) advance to play top-seeded South Carolina, but to get there they had to overcome a career-high 45 points by Alabama’s Sarah Ashlee Barker — and a 17-point Crimson Tide lead in the third quarter.

“I think we put on a show for women’s basketball tonight,” Barker said. “I’m very thankful for that. I’m very grateful that I’m in this opportunity and I was able to be part of such a great game like that.”

The 2006 Terrapins went 6-0 in overtime, including wins in the regional final against Utah and the national title game against Duke. This was the first time they went to OT in the NCAA Tournament since then — and just getting to an extra session was a chore.

After coming alive offensively in the fourth, the Terps finally tied it at 80 on two free throws by Shyanne Sellers with 1:01 to play. Barker put fifth-seeded Alabama back ahead with a 3-pointer with 38.6 seconds left, and then Barker blocked a 3 by Kaylene Smikle at the other end.

But Smikle came up with the ball and threw it to Te-Biasu, whose 3 tied it with 12 seconds left. Karly Weathers missed a midrange shot for Alabama, and the Crimson Tide had to go to overtime with two of their top players — Zaay Green and Aaliyah Nye — having already fouled out.

Maryland led by three when Barker was fouled shooting a 3 with 0.7 seconds left in the first OT. She calmly swished all three attempts to tie it at 96 and send the game to a second extra session.

It was surely the game of the tournament so far, and the only time in four second-round matchups this year that a No. 4 seed was able to take advantage of home court and beat the No. 5 seed. There has never been a Sweet 16 in the women’s NCAA Tournament without at least one No. 4 seed.

It almost happened this year, but with Maryland up three in the second overtime, Diana Collins missed a 3-pointer for the Crimson Tide (24-9). The ball went out of bounds to Alabama with 1.8 seconds left, but Te-Biasu broke up the inbound pass — which was headed in Barker’s direction — to seal the game.

“It was really a fight. We went double overtime but we just kept playing for each other the whole game,” Te-Biasu said. “I know I think it was like the third and fourth quarter it was a little bit tough for us, but we never gave up and we just kept fighting. That’s all we did.”

Only three players in tournament history have scored more points in a game than Barker’s 45: Drake’s Lorri Bauman had 50 against Maryland in a 1982 regional final, Texas Tech’s Sheryl Swoopes scored 47 in the 1993 title game against Ohio State, and Stanford’s Jayne Appel had 46 in a 2009 regional final against Iowa State.

Takeaways

Alabama: The Crimson Tide came oh so close to their first Sweet 16 berth since 1998. They outscored Maryland 60-38 in the paint, repeatedly taking advantage of Maryland’s lack of rim protection.

Maryland: The Terps pushed the tempo in the fourth when they needed to, and Te-Biasu has been huge for them down the stretch this season. It was an epic 24 hours for Maryland basketball after the men’s team beat Colorado State at the buzzer Sunday night.

Going the distance

Te-Biasu played 49:40 out of a possible 50 minutes. Barker played 49:05 and Weathers played 49:53.

Key stat

Maryland was expected to have an advantage on the boards, and the Terps indeed finished with 23 offensive rebounds to Alabama’s 14.

Up next

Maryland gets another shot at South Carolina after losing to the Gamecocks in the Elite Eight two years ago.

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.

A one-possession NCAA tournament game with seconds on the clock can induce as much dread as anticipation. For as often as situations like these produce iconic buzzer-beaters, they just as often fall victim to college basketball’s inherent jankiness—subpar coaches drawing up doomed sets and skittish players momentarily forgetting which direction their basket is. It’s a blessing to get one great shot out of a scenario like this; on Sunday night, Colorado State and Maryland gave us two.

The teams that successfully navigate these moments tend to be the ones that have a good idea of who they are and what they want to do. After Maryland’s Julian Reese hit two free throws to give his team a 70-68 lead with 22 seconds left, CSU head coach Niko Medved didn’t like what he saw as his team raced up the floor and struggled to get into an offensive set. He called a timeout with 12 seconds left, and while the Rams huddled up, there was no doubt who would be getting the ball on the next possession.

The Rams go as Nique Clifford goes. The 6-foot-6 playmaker who started his college career at the University of Colorado before transferring to CSU waited for his fifth season to become one of the best all-around players in the country. This transformation began in earnest after the new year, which is right around the time that CSU just stopped losing. The Rams came into Sunday’s game on an 11-game winning streak, with Clifford averaging 19 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists per game.

Clifford, who scored 21 points in the game, beat his defender to the spot on the left wing and received the inbound pass. One jab step and two strong dribbles later, he found himself on the block with a clear view of the floor and Maryland’s defense flowing toward him. A one-handed skip pass to the opposite wing found senior guard Jalen Lake wide open, who splashed one of the prettiest jumpers you’ll see to give CSU a 71-70 lead with 6.1 seconds left. After getting the ball over half court and calling a timeout, it was Maryland’s turn to figure out what the hell to do with 3.7 seconds remaining.

“Give me the motherfucking ball.” That’s the message Maryland head coach Kevin Willard says he received from Derik Queen in the huddle. That’s a bold demand for a freshman to make, but one that was suitable to the moment. Queen, a Baltimore native, was one of the most sought-after high school recruits in the country, and Maryland spent years convincing him to stick close to home and play for the state university. The Terps’ program-building philosophy wasn’t much more complicated than get Derik Queen and the rest will take care of itself, and they were largely proven correct. Queen arrived on campus and transformed a team that went 16-17 last season into a 27-8 monster that was good enough to earn a four seed in the tournament.

So Queen ran out from the baseline and received the inbound pass just beyond the three-point line. This is normally not the place you want your 6-foot-10 center to be receiving the ball on the final possession of the game, but Queen didn’t end up there out of desperation. His greatest gift his his coordination and body control, which is something to which any Big 10 defender who had to deal with Queen facing him up at the free-throw line can attest. Queen turned the corner and took a hard dribble to his left, then another, then a step, and a step, and a step—shut up about traveling!—and suddenly he was hanging in the air, all 245 pounds of him perfectly aligned in time and space, and he kissed a one-legged jumper off the glass and in from an improbably acute angle.

“Well, I mean, so I think I’m from Baltimore, that’s why.” That’s what Queen had to say to Andy Katz on the postgame court when he was asked where he found the confidence to demand the ball in that situation. Later, on the dais in the pressroom, he would tell everyone that this was the first game-winner he had ever hit. (“I wouldn’t have given it to him if I had known that,” Willard chimed in from two seats over.)

There’s another thing that can add a pall of dread to these tournament- and program-defining moments, which is that no matter which way they break, they bring on the future. Maryland survived and advanced, but soon there will be no more games to play and Queen, with braces still in his mouth and only one game-winner under his belt, will be headed for the NBA. Maryland will have ultimately spent more time recruiting Queen than counting him as a member of the team, and their ability to remain a force in the Big 10 will come down how quickly the can find the next Derik Queen.

Clifford’s leaving, too, which puts CSU back in the same spot it always finds itself in, as a plucky mid-major scouring the transfer portal for overlooked players that can be poached from bigger conferences and developed into Mountain West stars. There’s more than one way to build a successful program, and to engineer a legendary shot. You hold onto those moments as long as you can, and then you start over.