NEW YORK — Apparently South Carolina is getting the hang of winning NCAA tournament games.
The Gamecocks, who hadn’t won a tournament game since 1973, got their third this year. One more and it’s on to the Final Four.
“It’s a great win for the program,” Gamecocks guard Duane Notice said. “It’s a good feeling when we continue to make history and I think once we get a taste of it, we kind of get addicted and want to continue doing it.”
Sindarius Thornwell scored 24 points and seventh-seeded South Carolina cruised past third-seeded Baylor 70-50 in the East Regional semifinals Friday night – the Bears’ worst NCAA tournament loss.
The Gamecocks (25-10) were in control from the middle of the first half on, mixing defenses and hustling all over the Madison Square Garden court to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time.
“We have been real good defensively all year. We were on point definitely today,” Gamecocks Coach Frank Martin said.
South Carolina will play again Sunday against Southeastern Conference rival Florida, with a trip to the Final Four at stake.
D.J. Dozier and Chris Silva had 12 points each, and Notice added 11 for the Gamecocks.
Johnathan Motley had 18 points, 12 in the second half, for Baylor (27-8), which just couldn’t get any offense going. The Bears, who were ranked No. 1 for one week this season, missed 11 of their first 13 shots from the field and it didn’t get a whole lot better the entire game. They finished 17 of 56 from the field (30.4 percent), including 3 of 13 from 3-point range.
Thornwell made defending Motley sound easy.
“We stayed aggressive and made his catches hard, and we knew that he likes to score in the paint and let his catches be extended outside, that way he got to take more than one dribble to score; he can’t just turn and shoot over the top of you,” Thornwell said.
Motley said the defense was “extremely tough.”
“That’s what they game-planned for. And they did a great job of executing their game plan. We couldn’t, really couldn’t buy a basket.”
South Carolina opened the second half on a 12-6 run to get the lead to 49-28. The largest lead was 63-41.
Baylor was able to close to 11 points but that was as tight as the game would get.
The Gamecocks went on a 16-0 run that lasted 7:44 in the first half. They turned a 15-15 tie into a 31-15 lead with 2:50 left in the first half. The Bears went 0 of 10 from the field and committed four turnovers in the run. South Carolina’s biggest lead of the half was 37-20 on a 3 by Notice with 29 seconds to play. It was 37-22 at halftime.
The Bears shot just 25 percent from the field in the first half (8 of 32) and committed seven turnovers.
“What they do is a great job of making it difficult and then basketball’s such a game of momentum, and after you get off to a bad start, sometimes it’s hard to get in a rhythm or hard to get in a flow,” Baylor Coach Scott Drew said.
Martin is glad the rest of the country is getting to see the Gamecocks and their intense defense.
“It’s beautiful to us, which is what matters,” he said. “I’m sure there are people who don’t like it. That’s their prerogative.”
South Carolina came into the NCAA tournament having lost 5 of 7.
The Gamecocks’ previous largest margin of victory in the NCAA tournament was 78-70 over Texas Tech in the first round in 1973.
Baylor came into the NCAA tournament having lost 4 of 7.
FLORIDA 84, WISCONSIN 83: Chris Chiozza went the length of the court and hit a running 3-pointer from the top of the circle at the buzzer, giving fourth-seeded Florida (27-8) an overtime victory against No. 8 Wisconsin (27-10).
Wisconsin, which forced overtime when Zak Showalter made an off-balance 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds left in regulation, took an 83-81 lead on a pair of free throws by Nigel Hayes with four seconds remaining in overtime.
With no timeouts left, the Gators inbounded to Chiozza and the point guard stopped at the arc and dropped in the winner.
Kevaughn Allen scored 35 points for Florida, which wiped out an 11-point first-half deficit by turning up the pressure on Wisconsin.
The Badgers, though, erased a 12-point deficit in the last 4:15 of regulation. Hayes finished with 22 points and Ethan Happ scored 21 to lead Wisconsin, which knocked out defending champion Villanova in the previous round.
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