USF Beats Duke to Reach Sweet 16

San Francisco was one and done in its first appearance in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament a year ago. The Lady Dons are doing much better in their second try.

Seeded 12th, San Francisco is in the round of 16 after upsetting fourth-seeded Duke, 64-60, in a second-round Mideast Regional game Monday night at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium.

San Francisco (24-7), co-champion of the West Coast Conference, made nine of its first 10 shots to move into the regional semifinals in Chicago next Saturday against top-seeded Connecticut (32-3), the defending national champion. Connecticut beat Michigan State, 88-68, Monday night.

“We’re not kidding anybody. We don’t normally shoot that well,” San Francisco Coach Bill Nepfel said. “For us to get the shooting start we did really gave us a lot of confidence and set them back a bit. I think it surprised them.”

Duke (22-9) closed to 61-55 with 5:03 left but missed four of its last six shots and got no closer than the final score. Payton Black led Duke with 24 points.

In the Connecticut game, 6-foot-7 Kara Wolters scored 13 points in the second half and finished with 22 points for the Huskies.

WEST REGIONAL

Kate Starbird scored 22 points to lead top-seeded Stanford (27-2) to a 94-63 victory over No. 8-seeded Colorado State (26-5) at Maples Pavilion.

EAST REGIONAL

No. 6 Old Dominion (29-2) beat Toledo (25-6), 72-66, at Norfolk, Va., to advance to the regional semifinals against 11th-ranked Virginia at Charlottesville, Va. . . . No. 20 Kansas (22-10) beat Texas (21-9), 77-70, at Lawrence, Kan., and will face top-seeded Tennessee (28-4), which won, 97-65, against ninth-seeded Ohio State (21-13) at Knoxville, Tenn.

MIDWEST REGIONAL

No. 1-ranked Louisiana Tech advanced to Saturday’s regional semifinals with an 84-46 rout of Southern Mississippi (22-8), which shot only 23.3%, third-lowest in NCAA tournament history, at Ruston, La. Tech (30-1) will play Texas Tech in Nacogdoches, Texas. . . . Katrina Price forced overtime with a three-point basket, then scored the first four points of the extra period as No. 11-seeded Stephen F. Austin (27-3) won, 93-88, over third-seeded Clemson (23-8) in overtime at Clemson, S.C., sending the Ladyjacks to the regional semifinals against fourth-seeded Georgia on their home court.