Arkansas kept hounding and harassing South Carolina with its pressure defense. The Georgia Dome’s horn kept sounding with new waves of Razorbacks taking the floor.
The Razorbacks waited for the Gamecocks to wilt. That seemed inevitable because they were playing Thursday afternoon after beating Auburn late Wednesday night in the first round of the SEC tournament.
Instead of fading, the Gamecocks kept coming. They beat Arkansas’ full-court press for scores, crashed the boards and never relented.
The Gamecocks’ reward came when Rashad Madden’s 30-foot heave bounced off the rim, and they had a 71-69 victory over fifth-seeded Arkansas.
“We have fresh bodies; they had just played the day before,” Arkansas guard Michael Qualls said. “We just got outplayed.”
The Gamecocks advanced to play fourth-seeded Tennessee (20-11) in the quarterfinals Friday. They suddenly don’t look like pushovers.
The Gamecocks (14-19) finished next-to-last in the league, but are 6-4 in their past 10 games.
“We are all playing together and starting to find ourselves as a team,” Gamecocks forward Sindarius Thornwell said. “We are just trying to keep the winning going.”
The teams traded the lead five times in the final six minutes. South Carolina went ahead for good on Brenton Williams’ free throw with 53 seconds to play.
On Arkansas’ next possession, forward Bobby Portis got a clean look at a hook shot but missed. Michael Carrera rebounded for South Carolina and made a free throw, and Madden’s long shot at the buzzer missed the mark.
The Gamecocks held on to win despite missing five free throws in the last two minutes.
“Survive and advance, that is all you are geared up to do this time of year,” South Carolina coach Frank Martin said. “I didn’t think we had as much pep in our step today as we did yesterday. On the sidelines I thought our coaches did a great job keeping the fight and belief in our guys.”
Thornwell scored 17 points and Williams 10 for South Carolina. Reserves Laimonas Chatkevicius (16 points) and Duane Notice (11) helped South Carolina’s bench players outscore their Arkansas counterparts 34-22.
The Gamecocks had a 41-26 edge in free-throw attempts and 40-24 in rebounding.
“I thought they were in more of a game mode than we were, and I thought it showed going down the stretch,” Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said. “We had our opportunities. To me the game came down to toughness and rebounding.”
The start of the game was delayed because the previous contest, between Missouri and Texas A&M, went to two overtimes. The teams twice had to return to their locker rooms to wait for that game to finish.
Martin said he normally doesn’t like such delays, but this was a different circumstance.
“I was praying for a third overtime,” he said. “We were playing at 9:30 last night then turned around and had to play an NCAA-caliber team at 3 today. It’s hard to do. I’m ecstatic for our players, our coaches and our staff.”
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