Transy Women's Basketball is Back in the Final Four

by:Nick Roush•03/10/24•

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The NCAA tried to throw a wrench into Transylvania’s lengthy win streak. The extra hours on the road couldn’t keep the Transy women’s basketball team out of the Final Four.

The second-ranked Pioneers are the defending D-III National Champs. They have not lost a game all season, and yet the NCAA did them dirty by making them travel to Wisconsin for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight matchups.

Transy opened the weekend with a close call. They had to overcome a six-point halftime deficit to defeat UW-Stout 63-58. The following day they took care of business, limiting UW-Whitewater to only nine fourth quarter points in a 62-48 win. Transy has now won 64 straight games, the longest active win streak in college athletics.

Dasia Thornton led the way with 16 points and 11 rebounds for her 13th double-double of the season. Sadie Wurth added 14 points, while Sydney Wright tallied 14 points and 7 boards.

“I am super proud of this group. Obviously, when you have to go on the road and play the home team, you know how much better you have to be,” head coach Juli Fulks said after the win, her 400th as a head coach.

“Blessed. Blessed and grateful when you get to do this. We’ve had a team that’s put up a lot of wins together. That’s probably not the biggest milestone of the day. The biggest one is my parent’s fiftieth anniversary today. That’s probably the piece that keeps everything going. I have awesome parents that are at every game, and they have been at most of those wins and nearly all of them since we’ve moved to this side of the country.”

Defending the crown will not be easy. Transy will face another undefeated foe, top-seeded New York University, in the national semifinal. The game will be played in Columbus, OH this Thursday at 7:30 inside The Performance Arena on the campus of Capital University.

South Carolina Survives Bench-Clearing Fight to Win SEC Women’s Tournament

It was a chaotic ending to the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament in Greenville. With just over two minutes to play, a fan jumped over a barrier in the middle of a scuffle between South Carolina and LSU. The Gamecocks led by seven when officials spent more than 15 minutes conferring before ejecting so many players, South Carolina finished the game with six players and LSU only had five. Kamilla Cardoso will be sidelined for the opening round of the NCAA Tournament after starting the brawl.

LSU and South Carolina players got into a scuffle in the fourth quarter of the SEC Championship. pic.twitter.com/rXw1tb1jWM
— ESPN (@espn) March 10, 2024

The Gamecocks defeated LSU 79-72. It’s the fourth SEC women’s basketball title for Dawn Staley’s team in the last five years. Kentucky is the only other team with an SEC Tournament crown during that time.

South Carolina shouldn’t have even been in this game. Cardoso had never made a three-pointer in her career until the Gamecocks needed one to beat Tennessee. Left unguarded, she handed Volunteer fans a second heartbreaking loss on Saturday.