For the South Carolina men’s basketball team, a 10-point halftime lead against Ole Miss on Saturday was not enough to warrant a victory in SEC play.
The Gamecocks (7-10, 0-4 SEC) will try to capture that elusive first conference win when they travel to Georgia (9-7, 3-1 SEC) on Wednesday at 8 p.m.
Head coach Frank Martin mentioned after the loss to the Rebels that South Carolina’s big men must do a much better job of defensive rebounding. Freshman forward Demetrius Henry and sophomore forward Laimonas Chatkevicius have been among those struggling to get in the right position on rebounds.
“We were actually rebounding the ball real well through December and I don’t know what’s happened, but it’s got to get fixed,” Martin said in his Tuesday press conference.
At 6-foot-9, but just 215 pounds, Henry’s skinny frame has made it tough on him to box out bigger opposing players, as well as play defense without fouling. Improving his frame is likely a job for him in the offseason, since it is difficult to put on weight during the season.
In the meantime, Henry and the rest of the Gamecocks’ bigs must keep working to improve on the defensive glass if the team wants to start winning games in the SEC.
“It will be more effective if we all will be more active on our feet and go get the ball, not wait for it to hit our hands,” Chatkevicius said.
Georgia has also gone through some early season growing pains, especially after losing last year’s leading scorer Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who was a first round pick in this past NBA Draft by the Pistons. Caldwell-Pope was the clear go-to option last season when the Bulldogs needed scoring. This year’s team does more scoring by committee rather than having a player that stuck out like Caldwell-Pope.
Guard play is one of the Bulldogs’ biggest strengths with sophomores Kenny Gaines and Charles Mann setting the pace in scoring. Mann leads the team with a little over 13 points and roughly three assists per game. Gaines is averaging just below 12 points a game.
“Our on-ball defense better be good because they have big, strong, athletic guards, and they just bull rush you the way they drive the ball,” Martin said.
Junior forward Nemanja Djurisic has also been a key contributor for the Bulldogs with around 10 points and four rebounds per contest. The 6-foot-8, 230-pounder from Montenegro should have a good battle with the Gamecocks’ sophomore forward Mindaugas Kacinas on Wednesday.
Junior forward Marcus Thornton is Georgia’s leading rebounder, with around 5.5 boards to go along with around seven points per game. Henry — 4.2 rpg — and Chatkevicius — 3.2 rpg — will likely need to improve on their average rebounds per game if South Carolina wants to defeat the Bulldogs.
Chatkevicius said the Gamecocks’ mentality has stayed “pretty decent” through all of the tough losses. The most recent defeat against Ole Miss was only decided by one point.
“Everybody keeps trying their best,” he said. “Before every game in the SEC, I was going into the game really confident about the team. The team is still really hungry for the win.”
Martin stressed how he hates losing, but acknowledged he has to maintain patience in educating his young team. He added that South Carolina is further along in finding its identity but is not fully there yet. Martin also mentioned he was proud of his team not getting rattled on the road against Texas A&M last week where the atmosphere was loud. The Gamecocks led for a good portion of that game, but could not come out on top.
Martin also said the team knows what it is facing against the Bulldogs and knows it will not get any easier to be victorious in an SEC game.
“It’s going to be a hard matchup for us; Georgia is playing real well,” he said. “They have found their identity.”