SEC showdown at Madison Square Garden for spot in Final Four

No. 2 Kentucky, No. 4 Florida and No. 7 SC have survived until this point which means the SEC has more teams in the Elite 8 than any other conference.

Add the names Sindarius Thornwell and Frank Martin to the top of the list.

He plans to follow the Gamecocks to the Final Four.

With less than a minute left in the half, Allen was taken to the locker room by athletic trainers. “I’m going to go see a basketball game”. “You can rehearse a lot, but at the end of the day things have to go your way and breaks have to go your way”.

Gonzaga finally parlayed two decades of excellence into its first trip to college basketball’s showcase. There were 14 lead changes and 10 ties.

Thornwell made defending Motley sound easy. Wisconsin had a timeout Saturday night and maybe the Badgers would have been better off using it after Nigel Hayes’ go-ahead free throws and setting up their defence.

Sindarius Thornwell, the SEC’s Player of the Year, scored a game-high 26 points and was named the Most Outstanding Player.

Early Sunday morning, former Gamecock wide-receiver, Pharoh Cooper, tweeted the former Gamecock head football coach asking him who he was rooting for during the game. Duane Notice and P.J. Dozier both had 18, as well.

“He’s capable of doing anything on both sides of the basketball”. “It’s a blessing. Personally, I didn’t know where this program could go, but I know that when Frank Martin stepped foot on campus, you just got this vibe that the ball was rolling”. “His senior leadership just kicked in”.

“I was glad we didn’t have (a timeout), of course”, White said Saturday. A TV replay on the second one showed the shot clock resetting to 15 seconds instead of the full 30.

The fourth-seeded Gators had taken a 40-33 halftime lead.

“We definitely made a statement that the Gators are no joke and they’re definitely coming back and they’re building their program back to where it used to be”, forward Devin Robinson said.

Florida was called for seven fouls in the first 5 minutes of the second half, putting SC in the bonus for 15 minutes. Maik Kotsar’s work in the paint ignited a 12-4 run for the Gamecocks putting them ahead 51-48 with 10:44 to go. We just don’t let you push us. We just got to be patient.

The two have never faced off on a stage like this, as this is the deepest SC has gone in a postseason tournament in program history.

EXTRA TIME: Wisconsin has won eight straight overtime games and only one of them has been at home.

The Gamecocks finished the game on a 16-7 run to clinch their first-ever Final Four berth.

Allen struggled in the first two NCAA Tournament games, scoring a total of 11 points on 3-for-21 shooting. The Gators topped Ohio State in December 2006, then topped the Buckeyes again for the national title in 2007; they fell to UConn in December 2013, then lost to the Huskies again in the Final Four in 2014.

Among those in attendance at Madison Square Garden were Hall of Famer Rick Barry, whose son Canyon plays for Florida, Paul McCartney and Darius Rucker.