How Notre Dame Fighting Irish beat South Carolina Gamecocks
Charlie Creme, Women's College Basketball
TAMPA, Fla. -- Notre Dame beat South Carolina 66-65 in the national semifinals Sunday to advance to its fourth NCAA championship game in five seasons.
How the game was won: In a matchup dominated by the notable post players on both teams, the two biggest plays of the game were made by a pair of diminutive guards from Notre Dame. After South Carolina had taken its first lead of the night, 5-foot-11 senior guard Madison Cable snagged the miss off a Jewell Loyd air ball and scored the putback to put Notre Dame back in front. Then on South Carolina's final possession, Irish coach Muffet McGraw inserted 5-9 junior Hannah Huffman to hound South Carolina's Tiffany Mitchell. It worked. With the help of Loyd, the two forced Mitchell to nearly lose the ball out of bounds and then get only a desperation heave from 25 feet that was way off the mark.
Player of the game: Brianna
Turner. The 6-foot-3 freshman got Notre Dame off to a good start with eight of the Irish's first 15 points, and she remained a huge factor throughout, battling South Carolina's taller post players. Turner fouled out with 3:11 remaining with 17 points and eight rebounds.
Player of the game II: Taya
Reimer. Turner had help inside from Notre Dame's 6-3 sophomore. Reimer was 7-of-10 from the field and finished with 16 points and six rebounds. Her calm play in the high post when South Carolina cranked up the defensive pressure was another key to Notre Dame holding off the Gamecocks. McGraw was able to rotate her inside players, also using freshman Kathryn Westbeld extensively (20 minutes) to counteract South Carolina in the second half when the Gamecocks were asserting themselves more in the paint.
Player of the game III: Aleighsa Welch. The South Carolina 6-foot senior was the Gamecocks' best player during their most important stretch. During a 13-0 run that got them their only lead, Welch dominated the glass and scored eight points. She had been quiet for much of the game, but was nearly the reason the Gamecocks came back. She finished with 10 points and 14 rebounds.
Turning point: With Notre Dame trailing 65-64 in the final 25 seconds, Loyd was the player to take Notre Dame's biggest shot of the season. But her 15-footer came up woefully short.
Cable grabbed the biggest offensive rebound and made the biggest shot of her life to give Notre Dame back the lead that it otherwise held for all but 54 seconds in the entire game.
X factor: Loyd made just 9 of 24 field goals to finish with a game-high 22 points, but on two occasions when South Carolina either got to within one or tied the game, she made a shot that ultimately started a Notre Dame run that stretched the lead back out, once to 10 points and later to 12.
Stat of the game: South Carolina made just 5 of 13 free throws in the second half and 7 of 16 for the game. Conversely, the Gamecocks, taking most of their shots in the paint, made 55.2 percent of their field goals in the second half.
Stat of the game II: South Carolina was just 2-of-12 from behind the 3-point line. Notre Dame took just five 3-pointers the entire game, making two.
Freshman impact: Turner and South Carolina's A'ja Wilson were the two most decorated freshmen entering the season and each were huge under the bright lights of their first Final Four game. Turner was Notre Dame's best player in the first half and Wilson was South Carolina's for much of the second. The 6-5 Wilson finished with 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting, with and nine rebounds. She combined with Welch to get South Carolina back into the game.
