No. 5 South Carolina women beat Vanderbilt 84-63 in SEC Tournament quarterfinals

By Canadian Press on March 7, 2025.

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — 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 Southeastern Conference Tournament quarterfinals.

MiLaysia Fulwiley scored 15 off the bench and Sania Feagin added 13 points for South Carolina (28-3), which will face No. 10 Oklahoma, a 69-65 winner over 12th-ranked Kentucky, in Saturday’s semifinals.

Coach Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks, the top seed, appeared plenty motivated to win a third straight SEC 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, battled back to cut the lead to five with 4:22 left. The Gamecocks regrouped and outscored the Commodores 16-0 the rest of the way.

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’ reserves 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 fast-break 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.

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Steve Reed, The Associated Press

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