Mobile Home Sales in Sellers, SC

Caean Couto/Associated Press

SEATTLE — UConn’s record streak of reaching 14 straight Final Fours ended when third-seeded Ohio State beat the No. 2 seed Huskies 73-61 on Saturday in the Sweet 16 of the women’s NCAA Tournament.

Cotie McMahon scored 23 points and the Buckeyes (28-7) forced UConn (31-6) into 25 turnovers, ending the Huskies’ season before the national semifinals for the first time since 2008. UConn hadn’t been eliminated this early since 2006.

The Buckeyes stopped their own Elite Eight drought. Ohio State hadn’t made a regional final since 1993. The Buckeyes went on to lose in the title game that year.

They’ll play the winner of top seed Virginia Tech and fourth-seeded Tennessee on Monday night in the Seattle 3 Region final with a trip to Dallas at stake.

Ohio State, which had to rally from a double-digit deficit in the first round against James Madison, used full-court pressure to wreak havoc on the Huskies’ offense.

SOUTH CAROLINA 59, UCLA 43: Kamilla Cardoso had 10 points while the reigning national champion Gamecocks (35-0) turned in their latest overwhelming defense-and-rebounding-first performance to beat the Bruins (27-10) in the Sweet 16 in Greenville, South Carolina.

Advertisement

Aaliyah Boston had eight points, 14 rebounds and two blocks for the Gamecocks (35-0), the top overall tournament seed and the headliner in the Greenville 1 Region. It marked South Carolina’s 41st consecutive victory, securing the program’s sixth trip to the Elite Eight under Dawn Staley.

The Gamecocks will play for their fifth trip to the Final Four in Monday’s regional final against 2-seed Maryland.

It wasn’t an easy offensive operation for South Carolina, with UCLA sagging defensively to pack the paint in hopes of negating the Gamecocks’ size advantage behind Boston. But South Carolina dominated the glass from start to finish and used its length to turn every look into a difficult one for the fourth-seeded Bruins (27-10).

The Gamecocks entered the game ranked first in Division I in scoring defense, field-goal percentage defense and rebounding margin. They did nothing to change that, holding UCLA to 15-for-51 shooting (29.4%) º including 3 for 18 from 3-point range – while finishing with a 42-34 rebounding advantage that narrowed late after they led big.

Charisma Osborne scored 14 points to lead UCLA, which was in the Sweet 16 for the eighth time and first since 2019. The Bruins were trying to reach the regional finals for the first time since 2018 and only the third time in program history while pursuing their first Final Four appearance.

Once the game started, the Bruins tried desperately to close off the paint and dare the Gamecocks to shoot from outside.

But in a sign of what was to come, the Bruins kept missing shots that they needed to position themselves for a stunning upset. Worse, they failed to grab even a few of those misses to keep possessions alive early, with South Carolina going on to finish with a 15-8 edge on the offensive glass.

Meanwhile, the Gamecocks were able to just keep grinding and relying on their length. They led 25-15 at halftime before finally breaking this open by matching their game-long point total in the third quarter.

That included a couple of way-too-familiar sequences for UCLA Coach Cori Close. Twice the Gamecocks managed to lob a pass inside to the 6-foot-7 Cardoso, who used her long arms to reach over 6-2 fronting defender Christeen Iwuala and snag the ball for easy under-the-rim finishes in traffic.

Or there was Brea Beal (10 points) using her right hand to tap out a loose rebound over Gabriela Jaquez before securing it, then dumping it immediately inside to Victaria Saxton inside for a soft hook as the lead steadily grew.

MARYLAND 76, NOTRE DAME 59: Diamond Miller scored 14 of her 18 points in the final two quarters to lead the Terrapins (28-6) to a victory over depleted the Fighting Irish (27-6) in Greenville, South Carolina and reach the Elite Eight for the first time in eight years.

Shyanne Sellers also had 18 points for the Terps, who’ll play defending champion South Carolina, the top overall seed, on Monday night for a trip to Dallas for the Final Four.

Maryland used a third-quarter burst to put away the third-seeded Fighting Irish, who played once again without injured leading-scorer Olivia Miles after her knee injury at the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament earlier this month.

Miles and guard Dara Mabrey, both starters, were injured spectators for Notre Dame, which hung tight with Maryland for 25 minutes before Miller and Shyanne Sellers took over.

Miller, the first-team All-American, shook off a poor first half as Maryland gained control. Tied at 44-all, Lavender Briggs had a 3-pointer and Miller followed with a three-point play as the Terps closed the third quarter on a 13-1 run.

Notre Dame, which fought off Mississippi State on its home floor to advance last week, could not respond.

One newcomer who has earned some early praise is freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers. A late flip to South Carolina after being committed to Syracuse for much of the recruiting process, the Florence native is known by some for his big arm, but by others for his work ethic.

The early feel around the football building is that Sellers has a bright future ahead of him for the Gamecocks, which have now put five of 15 spring practices in the rearview mirror.

VIP: Newcomers who are standing out early

“Every day, he comes in, puts his head down and works. Whether it’s coming in early to get extra reps in the film room or coming back up after practice during the evenings with me and going through it,” junior quarterback Luke Doty said.

“His willingness to do the extra things and the things that people don’t really see, that’s kind of what stood out to me and reminded me of myself when I came in. The drive that he has to learn to get better and do the things out there on the field that are going to set him apart, that stood out to me. I’m extremely proud of him and all that he’s done so far. He’s going to continue to get better, and I’m going to do everything I can to help him do that as well.”

Sellers threw for 2,948 yards (150-for-258) with 45 touchdowns and only two interceptions as a senior at South Florence High School last season. He also rushed for 1,338 yards and 17 touchdowns as a senior, leading the Bruins to a 4A state championship.

Offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains, in his first season with the Gamecocks, sees some of the intangibles in Sellers as well. The 6-foot-3, 232-pounder who was a finalist for Mr. Football in the Palmetto State, is in a crowded quarterback room with a pair of redshirt freshmen, a sophomore and a returning starter, Spencer Rattler, in addition to Doty in a backup role.

VIP: Insider notes from Thursday's practice | In Photos: 70+ shots from practice

“LaNorris Sellers had a great offseason, so he got some reps that maybe a freshman wouldn’t get all the time, because of the way he worked, the way he competed,” Loggains said last week in a meeting with the media.

“He’s a very quiet kid. He leads by example. He’s always here. He’s the first one in, in the mornings, every morning. He’s the last one to leave when we do our winter workouts. He’s under the lights by himself and I’m sitting in my office watching him throw. That counts to me. That matters. That doesn’t make him jump people or make him be the three or the two or the four.”

16COMMENTS

Sellers and the Gamecocks will return to the field on Saturday, March 25 for their sixth practice of the spring.

Saturday, March 25 Practice #6 Tuesday, March 28 Practice #7 Thursday, March 30 Practice #8 Saturday, April 1 Practice #9 – Scrimmage Tuesday, April 4 Practice #10 Thursday, April 6 Practice #11

The Greenville Regional 1 champion in the 2023 NCAA Women’s Tournament will be crowned on Monday, March 27 as the No. 2 Maryland Terrapins will battle the No. 1 South Carolina Gamecocks. This Elite Eight matchup will take place at Bon Secours Wellness Arena, in Greenville, SC.

Once the odds from DraftKings Sportsbook are made available for this game, we’ll add that information below.

Game date: Monday, March 27Game time: 7 p.m. ETTV channel: ESPNLocation: Bon Secours Wellness Arena, Greenville, SC

Spread: TBDTotal: TBDMoneyline: TBD

No. 2 Maryland 28-6 (15-3 Big Ten)

First Round: Defeated No. 15 Holy Cross 93-51Second Round: Defeated No. 7 Arizona 77-64Sweet 16: Defeated No. 3 Notre Dame 76-59Her Hoops Stats ratings: 9 Overall, 7 Offense, 24 DefenseLeading scorer: Diamond Miller (19.6 ppg)Key stat of tournament: Seventh-best free throw percentage in the nation at 78.9%

Maryland dominated No. 3 Notre Dame in a 76-59 rout on Saturday to advance to its first Elite Eight since 2015. Tied at 44 midway through the third, the Terps stepped on the gas and closed the quarter on a 13-1 run. They continued to pile on in the fourth and extended their stay in Greenville, SC, for another two days. Diamond Miller and Shyanne Sellers both put up 18 points in the win.

No. 1 South Carolina 35-0 (16-0 SEC)

First Round: Defeated No. 16 Norfolk State 72-40Second Round: Defeated No. 8 USF 76-45Sweet 16: Defeated No. 4 UCLA 59-43Her Hoops Stats ratings: 1 Overall, 1 Offense, 1 DefenseLeading scorer: Zia Cooke (15.3 ppg)Key stat of tournament: Leading the nation in rebounding rate

South Carolina had little issues putting down No. 4 UCLA on Saturday, winning 59-43 in front of a partisan crowd in Greenville, SC. The defending national champions were defensively locked in early, holding the Bruins to just six field goals and 25 points in the first half. The Gamecocks are now just one win away from their third straight trip to the Final Four and fifth appearance in program history.

Dowell Loggains need only glance out the window of his office inside the Long Family Football Operations Center most nights for a look at the potential future of the quarterback position in Columbia.

This winter, Loggains said Wednesday, he spotted freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers working through extra passes and reps under the glow of South Carolina’s outdoor practice fields. Loggains took note.

“That counts to me,” he said emphatically. “That matters.”

Sellers committed to the Gamecocks in December. He didn’t even receive an offer from Shane Beamer’s staff until Oct. 22. But in his short time on campus, he’s already starting to turn heads.

Consider South Carolina’s first-year offensive coordinator impressed.

“He’s a very quiet kid,” Loggains said. “He leads by example. He’s always here. He’s the first one in in the mornings, every morning. He’s the last one to leave when we do our winter workouts.”

To be clear, Spencer Rattler is still South Carolina’s QB1. It’s fairly certain, too, former starter Luke Doty is penciled in as the top backup. Still, the competition brewing between Sellers and former four-star passer Tanner Bailey feels like a look into the future of the position for the Gamecocks.

Bailey’s arrival in Columbia, like Sellers’, was a bit of a last-minute coup. He’d been committed to Oregon before then-Ducks offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead took the head coaching job at Akron. Bailey then opened his recruitment and heavily considered committing to Indiana before signing with USC during the early signing period for 2022.

Rated the No. 220 player in the 2023 class, Bailey drew high praise from those inside the building throughout last fall. He carved a niche as the third-string passer behind Rattler and Doty, traveling to each of South Carolina’s road trips at Florida and Clemson in November. The expectation is he and Sellers will fight for that same role this spring.

“At some point in time, you deal with the depth chart for sure,” Bailey said in August. “But if you are a really good player and put in the work, then you will get your opportunity at some point in time.”

Sellers has long been lauded by those in-state as a can’t miss prospect, but his recruitment to South Carolina was a slow burn.

Beamer’s staff had tracked Sellers for most of their time in Columbia. Questions, though, remained about how accurate a passer he could be in college, his rocket arm notwithstanding, and whether he might play a different position at the next level.

Sellers quelled most of those concerns when he threw for 2,949 yards and 45 touchdowns to just two interceptions his senior year, guiding South Florence to a 4A state championship. That was on top of the 1,337 rushing yards and 12 scores he added on the ground.

“He’s working his rear end off to try and learn everything that we’re doing,” Beamer said. “Football is really, really important to him. He runs around with ‘Pup’ Howard all the time and they are all about football. So he’ll do everything in his power to get ready at that quarterback position.”

Loggains has kept a largely open mind to South Carolina’s signal-callers and offensive personnel since his hiring in December. He told The State he was combing through the film himself before asking for in-house opinions on the roster so as to give a fresh perspective to what others on staff might’ve seen the past few years.

The answers as to what USC has, at least for this year, remain rather simple. Rattler will be QB1. Doty, for all intents and purposes, should be No. 2 on the depth chart — though Loggains and Beamer echoed one another this week saying there “isn’t a depth chart” this early in the spring.

That leaves a handful of reps to be split between Sellers, Bailey, 2022 signee Braden Davis and third-year sophomore Colten Gauthier.

The time for those QBs to battle for the starting gig will come over time, perhaps as early as next spring. For now, Sellers is turning heads — particularly that of his new offensive coordinator.

“LaNorris Sellers had a great offseason,” Loggains said. “He got some reps maybe a freshman wouldn’t get all the time because of the way he worked, the way he competed.”

This story was originally published March 15, 2023, 3:42 PM.

GREENVILLE, S.C. — For the last eight years, barriers have blocked Brenda Frese, her Maryland Terrapins team and their progress. Though established as one of the premier programs in women’s college hoops, Maryland had consistently rammed up against the NCAA tournament regional semifinal round, losing every battle against that seemingly immovable force.

The barriers came in various size and colors: too much of Oregon superstar guard Sabrina Ionescu in 2017, that shock of burnt orange from Texas in 2021, the throttling from top-ranked Stanford a year ago.

On Saturday, in yet another round of 16 — described cruelly as “sweet,” when it had been anything but that for the Terps — Frese and her players faced yet another obstacle. It was big and blue and bruising. But every barrier has a crack somewhere, and Maryland finally found it.

“The last two years, we’ve gotten stuck at the Sweet 16,” senior Faith Masonius said. “After our last home win, I told [Frese]: ‘We’re not getting stuck there again.’”

After eight long years, the No. 2-seeded Terrapins have returned to the class of the elites. They knocked down a Notre Dame squad and its roster of tall and stout post players, advancing with a 76-59 win into Monday’s regional final. There, they will stare up at their fiercest challenge yet: the undefeated, top-seeded and reigning champion South Carolina Gamecocks.

At least, however, the Terps know a thing or two about overcoming their obstacles.

“We’re going to have our hands full, but I know we’re ready for it,” senior guard Abby Meyers said inside a locker room where the carpet was still wet from the celebratory shower Frese endured from her players. “We just have dogs on our team, and we’re just going to work every second [the] next game we play.”

Dogs they may claim to be, but Maryland needed to embody the spirit of a more sizable beast when going against Notre Dame. Because the aches and bruises began early.

Less than 30 seconds into the game, Masonius attempted a steal, twisted her ankle and headed for the sideline, although she quickly returned. A couple of minutes later, sophomore Shyanne Sellers entered the rumble underneath the boards and her goggles paid the price. The pace and physicality had Meyers rooting for the commercials, and by the first media timeout, she was bent over, clutching her knees and grasping for air.

“I mean, I was exhausted,” Meyers said.

Through the early stages of the game, there were few fouls called, no timeouts, tons of turnovers and constant battering. Notre Dame’s 6-foot-4 center Lauren Ebo, the graduate student from Washington, D.C. who previously played on that 2021 Texas team that defeated the Terps, packed the paint. Formidable as Ebo was inside, Notre Dame’s Kylee Watson provided as much height, with the foot speed to power around the Maryland defense.

The Terrapins possess speed from their taller perimeter players (Diamond Miller and Sellers), but not the size to match up against something so …

The size disparity became evident during the first five minutes — five minutes of hell for Meyers.

“All I know is that I really needed that media timeout because I needed to catch my breath,” she confessed. “I was pretty gassed at that point.”

Sellers, now on her second pair of goggles, didn’t show the same signs of fatigue. Still, she and Miller, and later freshman Bri McDaniel, felt the brunt of the Irish’s bigs. They were tasked with defending the post, and the assignment likely impacted their offensive output. Neither Miller nor Sellers scored in the first quarter. Miller, who averages nearly 20 points a game, finally cracked the big goose egg when she put her head down to force a whistle with 2:53 remaining in the half. Soon after, Sellers — with a heads up play — threw an inbounds pass off Ebo’s backside and also generated foul shots. Her breakthrough on the scoreboard — Sellers made both free throws — came with 2:26 remaining in the half, but Notre Dame still led, 29-25.

“The physicality was pretty brutal,” Sellers said. “Ebo, [Maddy] Westbeld, Kylee Watson, they’re all really strong girls. We knew we had to battle really hard, and that’s exactly what we did for 40 minutes.”

Miller added: “We knew we had to compete against their bigs, and we were prepared.”

After halftime, it showed, and Maryland flexed some muscle. Though the Terps had stayed close with the three-ball — they made four in the second quarter — they fearlessly drove downhill in the third. Sellers scored through contact for a layup and a foul, giving Maryland a 34-32 lead. A little time later when McDaniel, who committed her body to whatever torture existed in the paint, took one of her many hard falls and absorbed an offensive foul, the forced turnover provided another possession for Maryland, and one more layup for Sellers.

Then with about three minutes to go in the quarter, Sellers threw the lead pass to Miller, streaking down the court and unlocking Maryland’s free-flowing transition game. Miller danced inside and scored another and-one layup.

“A terrific response when you look at the box, 19 of the fouls drawn were between Shy, Diamond and Bri. I thought that aggressiveness [was what] we needed to have from the three of them,” Frese said. “Just a different mentality, I thought, in the third quarter.”

It was the mentality of the bully, and not the bullied.

Everything that makes up Sellers — her smile that teases mischief, her instincts that reveal an intelligence both on and off the court, and all that bravado — comes packaged in a spindly frame. She’s slight. And on first glance, it seems that a gusty wind could knock her down. But near the end of that commanding third quarter, after she scored at the rim, Sellers lowered her open palm to the floor. She flashed the basketball sign language that has the same meaning around for the world: Her opponent was just too small. Maryland had become the big bads.

“When it comes to size advantage, a lot of times we’re the ones under,” Masonius said. “Undersized … we’re pretty small, so we have to make up for that with heart and hustle. And I think just being able to pack the paint in with our defense and give ball pressure, so it’s not easy looks inside, is something that we really focused on, especially for this game.

“I think the majority of the time that you’re outsized by a team,” Masonius continued, “you just have to have that extra heart and hustle and fight in ya to push.”

Maryland did. Which made its long-awaited hurdle past this vicious round especially sweet.