Sports The 2025 NCAA Females’s Match persevered Friday with the principle day of Sweet 16 motion.
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Duke started the day with a traditional defensive efficiency, as the 2d-seeded Blue Devils stifled third-seeded North Carolina. After that, No. 1 seed South Carolina persevered its title protection as the Gamecocks came encourage to care for off upset-minded Maryland.
Third-seeded Louisiana Command will likely be off to its third straight Elite Eight look after going thru No. 2 seed North Carolina Command to get there.
The discontinue seed in the NCAA women’s match, UCLA, regarded the section on Friday evening. The Bruins had puny be troubled with No. 5 seed Ole Omit.
Right here are the total largest moments from Day 1 Sweet 16:
Lauren Betts carries UCLA to 76-62 get hold of over Ole Omit Lauren Betts was once so dominant interior that she barely neglected, scoring 31 parts on 15-of-16 shooting to lead UCLA past Mississippi 76-62 on Friday evening and sending the Bruins to the Elite Eight of the women’s NCAA Match for the principle time since 2018.
The 6-foot-7 Betts added 10 rebounds and three blocks for the No. 1 total seed, which is able to face LSU on Sunday for a huge gamble to come to the Closing Four.
Kiki Rice added 13 parts and 7 assists and was once the most sensible possible other player in double figures for the Bruins (32-2).
Tameiya Sadler scored 14 parts for the fifth-seeded Rebels (22-10), who had reached the Elite Eight 5 occasions, nonetheless no longer since 2007.
Betts had a identical line — 30 parts and 14 rebounds — in the Bruins’ 2d-round 84-67 victory over Richmond.
Betts’ layup build the Bruins ahead 19-10 in the opening quarter, nonetheless Ole Omit closed interior 21-19 on KK Deans’ jumper.
Deans’ posthaste-smash layup at the terminate of the principle half bought the Rebels interior 30-29 at the smash.
The Bruins opened the 2d half with an 8-0 slide and went up Forty five-33 on Londynn Jones’ 3-pointer.
Gabriela Jaquez was once all by myself on a speedily-smash layup that build UCLA up 63-46 in the rest quarter, and Ole Omit never threatened after that.
UCLA’s simplest two losses this season came in opposition to JuJu Watkins and Southern California ahead of the Bruins bought their revenge in the Extensive Ten Match remaining, beating USC 72-67.
Betts scored 16 of UCLA’s 30 first-half parts, the 2d time this season that she’s scored greater than half of the Bruins’ parts in a half.
She has 93 blocks this season, averaging almost three a game, and was once named the Extensive Ten’s Defensive Participant of the Year.
LSU comes encourage to top NC Command in thriller, moves on to yet one more Elite Eight Aneesah Morrow had 30 parts and 19 rebounds, Kailyn Gilbert had a necessary block that space up Mikaylah Williams’ stir-ahead layup with 1:07 remaining, and No. 3 seed LSU rallied past 2d-seeded NC Command 80-73 in a stressful women’s NCAA Match regional semifinal on Friday.
The Wolfpack led 69-64 with 4:29 left ahead of LSU began to surge, led by Williams, who scored 10 parts in the fourth quarter. After Gilbert blocked a layup attempt by NC Command’s Zoe Brooks, Williams transformed on the different terminate to create it 74-73 — section of a game-closing 10-0 slide for the Tigers (31-5).
LSU, which acquired the national title two years previously for coach Kim Mulkey, reached the Elite Eight for the third consecutive season and could perhaps serene face top-seeded UCLA.
Sa’Myah Smith had 21 parts and 11 rebounds for LSU, and Williams finished with 17 parts and eight boards.
Brooks led NC Command (28-7) with 21 parts. Coach Wes Moore’s Wolfpack fell quick in their repeat to attain a 2d straight Closing Four.
The game featured seven lead modifications and four ties, and LSU’s 21-10 advantage in the principle quarter was once the largest lead for both workforce. Morrow had 10 parts in the principle interval.
NC Command surged encourage ahead to take a 40-36 halftime lead, and Morrow yet again dominated in the third quarter, scoring 11 of her workforce’s 21 parts in the interval to position LSU ahead 57-Fifty three.
NC Command opened the fourth quarter with an 8-1 slide. The Wolfpack held LSU with no field scheme except Morrow made a layup with upright over seven minutes to play.
Morrow, the nation’s top rebounder, had her thirtieth double-double of the season. Her effort on the boards helped the Tigers outrebound the Wolfpack 52-36, including an 18-10 advantage on the offensive glass.
The 6-foot-1 ahead is one of two women in NCAA history with greater than 100 double-doubles. She’s also the most sensible possible player in the country with greater than 600 parts and 450 rebounds this season.
South Carolina survives terror from Maryland to come to fifth straight Elite Eight MiLaysia Fulwiley scored 23 parts, including a stir-ahead layup with 2:22 left, and Chloe Kitts added 15 parts and 11 rebounds to encourage No. 1 seed South Carolina beat fourth-seeded Maryland 71-67 on Friday in the Sweet 16 of the women’s NCAA Match.
The defending national champion Gamecocks went encourage-and-forth with the Terrapins all game ahead of in the rupture doing ample in the rest quick time to position it away.
South Carolina will face Duke in the Elite Eight on Sunday. The Blue Devils beat Atlantic Wing Conference rival North Carolina 47-38 earlier Friday.
Damage of day Staley’s workforce trailed 60-59 with 3:25 left ahead of defending Maryland with no level over the following three minutes. Fulwiley’s layup started the 7-0 slide that gave the Gamecocks (33-3) merely ample of a cushion.
Kitts added three free throws at some level of the spurt and Fulwiley scored on a fly-to-fly force.
The Gamecocks were up 66-60 with 25 seconds left when Saylor Poffenbarger ended Maryland’s scoring drought with a 3-pointer.
However the Terps couldn’t get nearer as the Gamecocks made 5 of six free throws down the stretch, including two by Fulwiley with 10.9 seconds left that made it 71-65.
Kaylene Smikle scored 17 parts to lead Maryland (25-8) ahead of fouling out.
Neither workforce could perhaps get into an offensive circulation in the principle three quarters. South Carolina trailed 43-39 unhurried in the third ahead of closing out the interval with a 13-7 slide that was once capped by a spectacular transition basket by Fulwiley, who went in the encourage of her encourage and then hit a pull-up shot.
The two teams had met once previously in the NCAA Match, an 86-75 get hold of for South Carolina in the Elite Eight in 2023.
South Carolina averted changing into the principle defending champion to lose this early in the match since Louisville knocked off Brittney Griner and Baylor in 2013 in the Sweet 16.
Duke takes down rival UNC for a outing to the Elite Eight Oluchi Okananwa recorded her third double-double of the season to lead ACC Match champion Duke past North Carolina 47-38 Friday and into the Elite Eight of the women’s NCAA Match.
The Blue Devils will create their 12th Elite Eight look in program history and could perhaps serene play both No. 1 seed and defending champion South Carolina or fourth-seeded Maryland, who were scheduled to play later Friday in Birmingham.
Okananwa scored 10 of her 12 parts in the principle half alongside with 10 rebounds off the bench for Duke, which bought 26 parts from its bench in contrast with North Carolina’s six. Ashlon Jackson finished with 10 parts, and Toby Fournier, Duke’s leading scorer this season who neglected the 2d round with an illness, was once held to three parts.
Fifth-300 and sixty five days senior Alyssa Ustby had 9 parts on 3 of 10 shooting for the Tar Heels, who fell quick in their attempt and come to their first Elite 8 since 2014.
Neither workforce shot the ball neatly. Duke shot 31% after lacking its first 9 field targets. North Carolina went 28% from the field.
Portion of it is going to had been because of familiarity. The teams played one yet one more for the 2d time this season decrease than a month previously. North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart said this week that there’s an added level of comfort going in opposition to a workforce they upright played.
But this was once also two of the discontinue defenses in the country going at it, forcing turnovers, errant pictures and determined heaves unhurried in the shot clock firstly of the game.
It was once the principle ever assembly in the NCAA match between the two teams, who have played one yet one more 111 occasions. North Carolina serene holds a shrimp 56-55 edge.
Reporting by The Associated Press
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