Kamilla Cardoso leads South Carolina past N.C. State, 78-59, in Final Four

Cardoso overcame an apparent leg injury late in the first half to score 22 points and lead the No. 1 overall seed to another championship game.

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Updated April 6, 2024, 1:22 a.m. ET

Published April 5, 2024, 9:09 p.m. ET

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 against Iowa (3 p.m., 6abc).

The No. 1 overall seed Gamecocks led 32-31 at halftime, even though N.C. State shot just 36.4% from the field while South Carolina shot 43.8%.

“I’m just proud of our team to be able to play on this big stage and not play our best basketball in the first half,” Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said, “and come back out and make some small adjustments and meet the moment to get us to Sunday.”

Staley’s team 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.

Cardoso 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.

The third-quarter rout, ESPN noted, was the most dominant quarter in women’s Final Four history, a span dating to 2016. South Carolina’s 29 points tied the scoring record for a quarter. Famed alumnus Darius Rucker was one of the many Gamecocks fans in the crowd who cheered it all on.

“Our locker room talk [at halftime], we wanted it,” forward Ashlyn Watkins said. “I could tell by our faces and voices, we wanted it more.”

Watkins certainly did her part. Though she shot just 4-for-11 from the field, she had her team’s second-most-notable stat: a whopping 20 rebounds, 15 on defense and 5 on offense.

“It was just doing whatever I could to help the team,” Watkins said. “That [statistic] wasn’t really a goal of mine, but I just went out there and played my best basketball.”

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.