Birmingham bound, but barely.

South Carolina women’s basketball trailed by as many as eight in its second-round game against No. 9 seed Indiana and still found itself in a dogfight well into the fourth quarter, but the Gamecocks survived a scare from the Hoosiers for the second consecutive tournament to win 64-53

The win pushes No. 1 seed South Carolina (32-3) into the Sweet Sixteen for a match-up against either Maryland or Alabama on Friday in Birmingham, the 11th consecutive tournament Dawn Staley’s team has reached the second weekend.

For most of the afternoon at Colonial Life Arena, the streak was very in doubt.

A flat offensive performance in the first half saw the Gamecocks score a season-low nine first quarter points and just 25 in the opening 20 minutes, cooling off considerably from Friday’s red hot shooting performance against Tennessee Tech.

Indiana’s (20-13) Chloe Moore-McNeil scored eight points in the first quarter alone along with stellar defense at the other end, one of several Hoosiers who completely locked up the Gamecocks. South Carolina could not find any dribble-drive penetration, had no open looks to speak of and turned it over seven times in the first half.

The late stages of the half picked up a little bit — South Carolina trimmed the deficit to one point going into the break — but Indiana took a well-deserved lead into the break in front of a shell-shocked home crowd.

A lot of the reason it did so was how well it locked up South Carolina’s post players, particularly Chloe Kitts and Joyce Edwards. The two combined for just three points in the first half, all by Edwards after Kitts sat for most of the second quarter in foul trouble.

Kitts erased her empty scoring column on the first possession of the second half, a sign of things to come. The junior forward ripped off seven points in the first four minutes of the third quarter, including a lid-lifting 3-pointer that energized the crowd and loosened up the bench. Once the shots started falling, everything else did. South Carolina had much more success driving the lane, its guards were able to work inside and draw fouls and the offense, while far from its best self, did enough to finally establish some game control.

South Carolina won the third quarter 26-14 to take an 11-point lead into the final frame. Kitts finished the game with a double-double off the back of 10 points and 10 rebounds, Sania Feagin added 10 in her Columbia swan song and Bree Hall canned three clutch 3-pointers to put a bow on her career in Colonial Life Arena.

Tessa Johnson knocked in four clutch free throws in the final minute to extend the lead into comfortale territory, and South Carolina held on.

Now the goal is to do the same thing as last March by turning a close shave against Indiana into a National Championship.

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