Tennessee run-rules Gamecocks to sweep SEC series.
No. 7 Tennessee (26-4, 6-0 SEC) defeated No. 23 South Carolina (22-10, 0-6 SEC), 8-0 in six innings, at Carolina Softball Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina.
The Lady Vols remain as the only undefeated team in Southeastern Conference play. Tennessee also extended its win streak to 19 games.
Tennessee scored five runs in the sixth inning for a run-rule victory.
Zaida Puni went 1-for-3, recording one home run, three RBIs and one run, for Tennessee. Destiny Rodriguez went 2-for-3, recoding one double, one RBI and one run.
Laura Mealer went 3-for-3. She recoded one double, three RBIs and one run, while Sophia Nugent went 2-for-2. She recorded two RBIs and two doubles,
Taylor Pannell went 2-for-3 and recorded two runs.
Karlyn Pickens (14-2) pitched six innings. She allowed three hits and two walks, while recording 10 strikeouts.
Former Wisconsin assistant a first-round exit from NCAA Tournament
Former Wisconsin assistant Lamont Paris and the South Carolina Gamecocks were upset by the 11th-seeded Oregon Ducks in the NCAA Tournament’s round of 64 Thursday night.
The Ducks coasted to an 87-73 win thanks to guard Jermaine Couisnard’s 40 points, six assists and four rebounds.
South Carolina was sent home early after a resurgent season under Paris and a renewed optimism for the future. The program had entered March Madness after an incredible 26-7 regular season record and a 13-5 mark in SEC play. The team finished second in the conference after many had picked it to finish last.
The program’s breakout season occurred in only the former Wisconsin assistant’s second year on the job. His first year was an 11-21 rebuild, quickly leading to one of the program’s more successful seasons in recent memory.
Paris was an assistant on Bo Ryan and Greg Gard’s Wisconsin coaching staffs from 2010-2017 — present for the best run in program history from 2013-2017. He left in 2017 for the head coach’s job at Chattanooga, where he finished 87-72 over five seasons — improving from 10-23 and 10th in the Southern Conference his first season to 27-8 and conference champions in his final year.
South Carolina bows out in the first round, but still one hell of a season for Lamont Paris and the Gamecocks.
Picked to finish last in the SEC.
26-7 and 13-5 in the SEC.
Key question is whether Paris can work his magic again in the portal again.
South Carolina recently signed Paris to a lucrative contract extension, ensuring he’d stick around to see the improvement continue.
This year’s tournament result was a disappointment. But the season can be considered a resounding success for the Gamecocks.
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In a recent NBA Mock Draft, the Chicago Bulls selected South Carolina forward Collin Murray-Boyles.
A rough start to the season made it seem as though the Chicago Bulls were doomed, but as the year has gone on, their potential future plans have gotten brighter and brighter. Not only have they pushed their way back into the Play-In race, but Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu have emerged as solid building blocks.
Now, as they prepare for the offseason, their sights need to be set on adding more young talent to help White and Dosunmu. At the same time, they should be looking to add guys who can develop into solid players themselves, as they don’t have great young talent on the roster outside of White and Dosunmu.
A recent NBA Mock Draft from No Ceilings has them selecting a guy who could fill both of those distinctions: Collin Murray-Boyles out of South Carolina.
“South Carolina’s Collin Murray-Boyles has been one of the most productive freshmen in the 2024 class,” wrote Corey Tulaba. “The 6’7” lefty with a rumored 7’2” wingspan has some Julius Randle in his game, merging physicality and finesse. Murray-Boyles is a crafty interior scoring presence with playmaking feel who can face-up and attack or seal his man and finish on the block. Defensively he can move his feet and switch out to the perimeter while offering enough rim protection that he could play some minutes at the five. Murray-Boyles’s lack of perimeter shooting ability won’t fill an immediate need for a Bulls team in the bottom ten of distance shooting, but taking a swing on a young, talented forward who has been killing the advanced stats models is a worthy swing in the backend of the lotto for a middling team that needs an influx of young talent.”
Murray-Boyles isn’t a shooter, but he’s the type of versatile forward who could be an intriguing piece in a Bulls lineup that features a solid amount of offensive creation already.
[autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] has had a special freshman season at Notre Dame, and now, we know exactly how special. She has joined USC’s JuJu Watkins as the fourth and fifth freshmen to be named to the AP All-American First Team since it began during the 1994-95 season. They join Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, South Carolina’s MiLaysia Fulwiley and Texas’ Madison Booker.
Trojans coach Lindsay Gottlieb obviously has seen Watkins up close and personal throughout this season, but she reserved praise for Hidalgo, too:
“We’ve had a front row seat to JuJu, but what Hannah’s done is unbelievable Coach Niele (Ivey) has done an incredible job.”
Ivey also was quoted in the AP story and said this about Hidalgo, the nation’s steals leader at 4.6 a game and its third-leading scorer at 23.3 points a game:
“She deserves to be listed amongst the best in women’s basketball. Hannah is a fierce competitor and an elite performer who rises to the occasion and has been extremely consistent and dominant this season.”
What has to be scary to opponents is that Hidalgo only is getting started. She likely will hold many Irish records by the time she’s done with the program. Irish fans will be anxious to find out how many of those records she holds in the end.
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Outside of whiplash, there were no other major injuries.
The South Carolina men’s golf team was involved in an accident Sunday when driving home from its tournament in Statesboro, Georgia.
The team van t-boned a car that ran a red light on a two-lane highway in Waynesboro, Georgia, about an hour and a half from Columbia, South Carolina. Junior Nathan Franks, who earlier that day picked up the win in the Schenkel Invitational at Forest Heights Country Club, was injured and will be out through at least the SEC Championship, assistant coach Brady Gregor told Golfweek.
Outside of whiplash, there were no other major injuries to players or coaches in the van. South Carolina was not at fault, per the police report.
South Carolina men’s golf team van after the accident. (Photo: Brady Gregor)
Franks, a junior from Roebuck, South Carolina, finished off his second victory this spring and was in the middle of the best stretch of golf in his life before the accident. He won the Thomas Sharkey Individual Collegiate in February before picking up his latest win Sunday.
The injury was a hairline fracture in his right elbow. He will be in a sling for four weeks and be evaluated after to determine how much he has healed.
“He’s the type of kid that if he could play through it, he would,” Gregor said.
The van was traveling roughly 40 miles per hour when a Jeep Grand Cherokee ran a red light while making a left turn, causing a collision. The two vehicles then careened into a truck parked in a turn lane when the van came to a stop and the car spun. The driver of the vehicle attempted to drive away but got about 100 yards away before the car couldn’t go anymore.
Gregor was driving with Franks in the passenger seat and six others in the back of the van at the time of the collision.
South Carolina returns to action this week at the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate in Awendaw, South Carolina.
Not long ago, Notre Dame was seen as nothing more than a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Some bracketologies had the Irish as low as a No. 6. Since then, the Irish have won eight straight games and the ACC Tournament championship. That was enough for the selection committee to make them the No. 2 seed in Albany Regional 1., the highest seed for any ACC team.
The result is the Irish will get to host the first two rounds of March Madness. They’ll begin their run to a national championship against No. 15 seed Kent State. The winner of that game will face the winner of the other first-round game in South Bend between Ole Miss and Marquette. The Irish’s only previous meeting with the Golden Flashes was a 66-41 victory in the first round of the 1996 WNIT.
While the seeding isn’t a complete surprise, it’s an improvement from most bracketologists’ final projections. One of, if not the only one that had the Irish as a No. 2 seed was College Sports Madness. ESPN, CBS Sports and Her Hoop Stats all projected the Irish as a No. 3. Needless to say, the Irish did everything they needed to be a tournament host and then some.
The one hiccup for the Irish is that they were seeded in the same bracket as South Carolina, the top overall seed and heavy favorite to win the national championship. Perhaps seeing the Gamecocks in the season opener in Paris will give them an advantage for what to expect. But they have a few other games to win before it gets to that point, and that’s why they play them.
So make your plans to be in South Bend this coming weekend. The Irish will need all the support they can get as they begin that national title run.
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I’m not say that this is what ultimately sparked the LSU and South Carolina skirmish in a wild ending to the SEC title game, but it couldn’t have helped.
Before the two teams got into it, Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso got physical with each other and appeared to have A LOT to say to each other (see below) during the hard-fought contest. But it was a hair pull from Reese on Cardoso that referees didn’t notice after an LSU hoop that everybody else did notice.
If these two teams face each other in women’s March Madness, it’s going to be a must-watch event:
For a moment, broadcaster ESPN almost started a panic for the upcoming NCAA tournament by insinuating that every player ejected wouldn’t be able to play in the first round. That, of course, felt like an extreme reaction to what would’ve quickly become one of the biggest and most impactful moments of the entire college basketball season.
ESPN announcers shocked everyone with a report that all ejected LSU-South Carolina players are ineligible for the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Recognizing their error, the broadcast quickly apologized and clarified that only those directly involved in the incident would be suspended, including South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso. Phew.
That’s still not ideal, but considering the number of players stepping in, the alternative would’ve undoubtedly been a catastrophe.
The freshman is part of an elite class of players this season.
While far from the most prolific women’s basketball player this season, Notre Dame’s [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] still has been incredible. From the moment she stepped on the court in the season opener against South Carolina in Paris, there have been few games in which she hasn’t had a real impact. Now, she’s been rewarded by being named one of 15 finalists for the Wooden Award, which is given to the national player of the year.
Hidalgo entered Sunday’s ACC Tournament championship game averaging with the nation’s third-best scoring average at 23.4 points a game and as the nations steals leader at 4.7 a game. She has reached double figures scoring in every game, and the only time she didn’t record at least one steal was in the Irish’s win over UConn, the highlight of their NCAA Tournament resume.
While it will be tough to make a case for anyone other than Iowa’s Caitlin Clark to win this award, Hidalgo becoming a finalist as a freshman in an achievement on its own. Hopefully, this is only the first time she has this honor.
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SEC Tournament: South Carolina eliminates Lady Vols on last-second shot
No. 1 seed South Carolina (31-0, 16-0 SEC) defeated No. 5 seed Tennessee (19-12, 10-6 SEC), 74-73, Saturday in the SEC Tournament semifinals at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina.
The Gamecocks scored the first 13 points of the contest and led, 36-23, at halftime.
Tennessee rallied from a 23-point deficit and led, 73-71, after Rickea Jackson converted a field goal. South Carolina won on a three-point attempt by Kamilla Cardoso, the SEC Defensive Player of the Year, as time expired.
It was the first career three-point field goal for Cardoso. She finished with 13 points for the Gamecocks.
Jackson totaled 22 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, while Jewel Spear recorded 21 points, four rebounds and one steal.
