Mercer gives South Carolina a first-half tussle, but Gamecocks pull away in NCAA Tournament

Box score

          A 13-4 run got Mercer going, and there were the Bears, a 16th seed, tied with top seed South Carolina with less than four minutes left in the first half.

          That was enough for the Gamecocks.

          South Carolina closed out the second quarter with a 16-5 run and kept it going the rest of the way to dispense Mercer 79-53 in a first round women’s NCAA Tournament game in San Antonio.

          Mercer’s season ends at 19-7, while South Carolina is 23-4 after getting head coach Dawn Staley her 500th career win.

          “It’s a great milestone,” Staley said. “It means that you’ve been in the game a long time and more than likely, you’ve had some great players that allowed you to get to this point. ... But 501 sounds nice, and on and on and on.

          “ So 500’s great tonight.”

          South Carolina won its previous first-round games as a top seed by 50 over UNC Asheville in 2017, by 36 over Jacksonville in 2016, by 33 over Savannah State in 2015, and by 25 over Cal State-Northridge in 2014.

          The Gamecocks’ lead was 43-32 at halftime, and they started to ease away, but Mercer was within 12 at the 5:30 mark of the third quarter.

          From then on, though, South Carolina- which went with a smaller lineup for much of the first half, to Mercer’s delight - tightened its control and pulled away, leading 64-47 after three.

          “We had a funky lineup in,” Staley said. “And you roll the dice. I rolled the dice. … We turned the ball over, we fouled them.”

          Amoria Neal-Tysor led Mercer with 15 points, while Jada Lewis had 14 and Shannon Titus 12.

          Aliyah Boston had 20 points and 18 rebounds –her 28th career double-double - for South Carolina, while Model High grad Victaria Saxton had 20 points and six rebounds. Zia Cooke added 13 and Laeticia Amihere 11.

          The expected issue down low proved true, South Carolina with a 52-27 rebounding advantage.

          “We did a really poor job with that, and that was the difference in the game,” Mercer head coach SusieGardner said. “They beasted us on the offensive glass.”

          Neither team was sharp from three, but South Carolina outshot Mercer 45.2-36.9 percent.

          “We knew that we had an advantage in the paint, so we knew that we had to take care of that,” Saxton said. “We knew that we had to be patient with the ball and don’t rush anything.”

          Cooke and Destanni Henderson got off to poor starts, as per Mercer’s plan.

          “We did a great job, honestly, on Henderson and Cooke,” Gardner said. “They had zero points at halftime. And that was one of our objectives, was to keep those two guys from being able to score. But our other objective was the defensive rebounding, and we just did not do a great job.”

          Mercer’s wasn’t firing from deep or driving inside, and that kept the Bears competitive, and they gave South Carolina what Staley expected.

          “Mercer’s a pretty darn good team,” she said. “Obviously, they have perfected the mid-range, the short shot.”

          And the taller Gamecocks didn’t so much swatting of those shots. Mercer’s changing of defenses slowed the Gamecocks down a bit, too.

          “We knew they were going to junk it up. One of our keys today was offensive execution against their changing defenses,” Staley said. “They did a great job of trying to take away two of our most productive people, and they did that in the first half.”