BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — MiLaysia Fulwiley seemed to make a conscious decision. With her teammates struggling and defending women’s champion South Carolina being pushed to the brink, the sophomore simply took over.
A transition layup. Acrobatic finishes. A spin in the lane leading to a drop-off assist. A behind-the-back move before a soft floater. On an afternoon when Maryland had most of the answers for the advanced test South Carolina presents, the Terrapins couldn’t find one to slow Fulwiley.
The 5-foot-10 guard scored 23 points, a game high and one shy of her career high, and dragged the Gamecocks to the Elite Eight in a goose-bumps-inducing, 71-67 victory over Maryland at Legacy Arena on Friday. The chase for a second consecutive national championship, which would be a program first, continues.
“Every game, I feel like I need to do more,” Fulwiley said. “My teammates, they kind of tell me every game that I need to be on top of my game, do what I do best, driving or scoring, period. I think today I kind of just was locked in and determined and kind of really scraped forward with what I wanted to do, which was score.”
Maryland led 45-39 midway through the third quarter when Fulwiley shifted gears. She had just seven points before she spearheaded a 13-5 run to close the third quarter that gave South Carolina a 52-50 lead entering the final 10 minutes. With the Terps leading 60-59, Fulwiley went at it again with another dribble-drive layup to start a 10-3 run that put the game away.
South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley had some harsh words for Fulwiley during the third quarter. She was unhappy with some shots and the way she was defending Maryland’s bigger guards.
“I got in her big-time,” Staley said. “Two months ago, she wouldn’t be able to recover from it. Shut down, we probably would have lost the game because she was the only one that could really manufacture our shots and make baskets. But she just wants to win. I think in those moments is when I feel like I can coach her the most, where she’ll listen the most.”
The Terps never looked in awe of the country’s deepest team, which has just six losses in the past four seasons. The calm could be felt from the stands. The first sign of uncontrollable emotion came after the final buzzer when Amari DeBerry bent over at the waist in tears.
Shyanne Sellers ended her Maryland career with a 10-point, seven-rebound, five-assist performance on a sprained knee that slowed her since January. She became the only player in program history to record 1,500 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists. Kaylene Smikle scored a team-high 17 points and added five rebounds. Sarah Te-Biasu and Allie Kubek scored 12 apiece. Kubek ended up fouling out on two questionable calls, and her absence clearly affected the Maryland offense.
“Through the course of my journey here, I’ve seen it all,” Sellers said. “I’ve been at one of the best programs in the country for four years. I’m grateful for my time here. I’ve made sisters for life, family for life, and nothing is going to change once I go.”
Chloe Kitts (15 points) was the only Gamecock other than Fulwiley to score in double figures, and 10 of those came in the first quarter. Fulwiley was simply too much for the Terps to pull off the upset.
Maryland finishes a season that featured more ups and downs than usual. Shortly after starting with 14 straight wins for the first time since 2011-12, the Terps lost Bri McDaniel to a torn ACL. Around that time, Maryland suffered five defeats in eight games, mostly to heavy hitters in No. 1 seeds USC, Texas and UCLA but also to Ohio State on the road. The true disappointments came at home against Illinois and Nebraska. A regular-season-ending victory over the Buckeyes, which featured a game-winning heave from Te-Biasu, gave Maryland a double-bye in the Big Ten tournament, but it lost to Michigan by 27 in its first game.
Maryland bounced back with a trip to its 21st Sweet 16, which included a double-overtime win over Alabama in the second round. The Terps had more pride than anything after the South Carolina loss, knowing they nearly knocked off the reigning champion.
Maryland Coach Brenda Frese called this one of her most memorable teams and seasons.
“You’re going to have moments that you are going to go through high highs and low lows,” Frese said. “And for them, they can see how resilient they were through the course of the season and were able to come back out on top, and they will be able to do that in life.
“When you look at the pressure they were under and even in the Sweet 16 game, they didn’t even flinch. We believed we could win this game. We showed that we could win this game. And I think we gave a pretty good blueprint on how to beat South Carolina, to be quite honest, for the teams moving forward.”
Frese was nearly in the paint as the buzzer sounded to signal halftime. The fist pump was back as she greeted each player with encouragement after Maryland went into the break with a 33-31 lead. The Terps couldn’t ask for much more against the No. 1 seed in the Birmingham 2 Region. The Terps held the No. 12 scoring offense in the nation to just 31.6 percent shooting in those opening 20 minutes. Kitts and Fulwiley accounted for all 17 of South Carolina’s first-quarter points, and neither scored in the second quarter.
The Terps weren’t an offensive juggernaut, shooting just 35.7 percent themselves, but they were able to get to the free throw line (11 for 16) and had 10 more attempts than the Gamecocks (5 for 6). The first lead of the game came off a Te-Biasu three from the right extended elbow to go up 21-20.
Maryland shot only two free throws in the second half, a shift that affected the offensive production.
In the third quarter, Maryland used an early 8-3 run, capped by Christina Dalce’s layup, to push the lead to 41-34, the largest by either team at the time. A break in play, however, seemed to fire up the Gamecocks, and Fulwiley suddenly appeared on a mission, heading a 7-0 run that put the Gamecocks back in the lead at 46-45.
“Nobody in the country has anyone to be able to match that kind of speed,” Frese said of Fulwiley. “We tried with Mir [McLean], and she did everything she could, but we were trying to corral her with two to three players, but you see her end-to-end speed. I thought she was no question the most valuable player in this game.”
Smikle split a pair of defenders for a layup and Te-Biasu stripped Fulwiley and pulled up in transition for a three, but South Carolina ripped off six more points, highlighted by Fulwiley going behind the back in transition before stopping on a dime for a floater, for a two-point edge heading into the fourth quarter.
“We executed the game plan to a T,” Sellers said. “Came down to we missed more free throws than we usually do, and then a couple of stops at the end. But ultimately I’m super proud of this group, proud of the way we fought. People thought we were going to get crushed by 20. I think we set the record straight to stop doubting Maryland again and again.”
