Men’s basketball squeaks by Kentucky Wesleyan on last-second layup
South Carolina basketball coach Frank Martin guarantees that if you put him on the court for 39 minutes, he would have more than one rebound despite his eight knee surgeries and 55 pounds of extra weight at age 46.
“You have my word on that one,” Martin said.
That would’ve been better than two of his players combined on Tuesday night.
Though the Gamecocks ultimately won their exhibition against Kentucky Wesleyan, 68-67, they needed a layup from Brenton Williams with 2.3 seconds left to beat the Division-II team, a discouraging sign with the regular season looming.
USC opens with University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee on Nov. 11.
“I don’t think we’re ready yet,” said point guard Eric Smith.
Before a crowd of football coach Steve Spurrier, women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and about 1,000 others, the Gamecocks disappointed Martin in two major ways — rebounding and screening.
Outside of freshman Michael Carrera and senior Lakeem Jackson, “everyone else was a spectator” when it came to the rebounding, Martin said. He described the screening as “really bad.”
“Those are two things there’s no excuse not to do better because those are things we control,” Martin said. “We control the effort and the discipline and toughness that we play with. We didn’t do those two things very well.”
USC’s inside presence of RJ Slawson, a 6-foot-8-inch junior, and Laimonas Chatkevicius, a 6-foot-11-inch freshman, had one rebound combined in 39 minutes of play. Slawson finished scoreless and Chatkevicius had four points and tallied four blocks.
“RJ can be real good for us and he’s been real good,” Martin said. “RJ has done everything that we’ve asked of him until this point. I don’t expect him to play like he did today very often. I think he was nervous.”
Martin didn’t plan specifically for the Panthers because he said when the conference season arrives, both teams know everything about each other, so it comes down to execution separating who wins and loses.
The Gamecocks played with just seven players, as senior LaShay Page, freshman Mindaugas Kacinas and sophomore Damien Leonard were all out with injuries.
He said he wasn’t planning on calling timeouts during the game, but once it got out of hand, he called two. He was disappointed with the lack of attention to detail coming out of the timeouts. With just under six minutes to play, junior Brian Richardson had a turnover coming out of a USC timeout, prompting Martin to bury his face in his hands on the bench.
Though he’s famous for his spirited outbursts, Martin maintained composure during the game. At one point, he said he looked down at the stat sheet and couldn’t comprehend how USC was still in the game with its shooting percentage from the field.
In the second half, USC shot 28 percent from the field, going 0-for-6 from three-point range. The Gamecocks shot 38 percent from the field for the game, but took 38 free throw attempts, making 27.
“I saw how many free throws we were shooting and that’s what it’s about,” Martin said. “If you’re getting to the foul line, then you’re doing some things right.”
As an exhibition, the game didn’t mean much for the team officially. Regardless, USC struggled, watching most of its layups fly around the rim rather than fall into it.
“I think a lot of guys just got their jitters out,” Jackson said. “It was the first game under the lights, with the refs and the crowd, so I think we just got the jitters out.”