Cardoso overcame a leg injury late in the first half to score 22 points and lead the No. 1 overall seed to another championship game.
CLEVELAND — It took South Carolina a while to get going in its Final Four matchup with N.C. State. But by the end of the night, the undefeated Gamecocks were long gone.
Led by a 29-6 third quarter and star center Kamilla Cardoso’s 22 points and 11 rebounds on the night, South Carolina prevailed, 78-59, to advance to Sunday’s national championship game . The Dawn Staley-coached Gamecocks led 32-31 at halftime, even though N.C. State shot just 36.4% from the field while South Carolina shot 43.8%.
The No. 1 overall seed had to play the last 1 minute, 39 seconds of the half without Cardoso, as she went to the locker room after an awkward fall going for a layup in the lane a few plays earlier. It looked like a right leg injury.She came back when her team took the floor to warm up for the second half, wearing a different sleeve on her right leg from the one she had before. But her play was the same as it had been: impossible for N.C. State to stop.
Aziaha James led N.C. State in scoring with 20 points, capping off a shooting-star run in the tournament. She scored 19, 22, 29 and 27 points in the Wolfpack’s first four games to lead the team to its first Final Four since 1998, the heyday of the late, legendary coach Kay Yow.
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