Trying to snap a two-game losing streak, there may not be a better SEC opponent for South Carolina (11-11, 2-8 SEC) to face Tuesday night than Missorui (7-16, 1-9 SEC).
Like the Gamecocks, the Tigers find themselves near the bottom of the SEC standings more than a month into conference play in head coach Kim Anderson’s first season with Missouri. Since winning their conference opener against LSU, Missouri has lost nine straight contests.
Don’t tell South Carolina head coach Frank Martin that, though. At this point, Martin thinks that his team can’t take any team for granted and that the Tigers are better than what their record indicates.
“If you watch film on them and I told you, you don’t know scores, you don’t know records and then I told you what their record was, you’d say there’s no way,” Martin said.
South Carolina’s matchup with Missouri comes three days after another tough road loss for South Carolina.
During its first ten conference games, South Carolina has gone through long scoring droughts on offense and has blown late leads on a couple of occasions. But Saturday’s 65-50 loss to Vanderbilt on the road was especially painful for Martin’s team.
Although it’s not evident by the final score, the Gamecocks were in full control in Nashville nearly halfway through the second half, leading by 12 points with just less than 15 minutes remaining.
It went all downhill from there, though.
After South Carolina junior power forward Laimonas Chatkevicius made a layup to put South Carolina ahead 43-31, the Gamecocks made just one of thirteen shots from the field in the final 12:44.
Meanwhile, Vanderbilt went on an 18-0 run, completely reversing the course of the game and the frazzled Gamecocks couldn’t get back into the contest.
Martin explained that the loss was a microcosm of sorts of South Carolina’s season. Similar to the way South Carolina failed to handle success after having a seven-game winning streak earlier in the season, the Gamecocks couldn’t sustain its good play against the Commodores.
“I told our guys that game was kind of our team, our season in a microcosm,” Martin said. “We’re good enough to fight you, we’re good enough to build a lead, but we’re searching for that personality that you need to have, that leadership that you need to have.”
Despite struggling to win games in conference play, both Martin and South Carolina sophomore guard Sindarius Thornwell claimed that the Gamecocks are better at this point this season than they were last year.
“A lot of our losses this year have been like tough losses, like single digits or we’re up in the second half and we blow the lead and stuff like that,” Thornwell said.
Likewise, Martin said he believes that Thornwell, South Carolina’s leading scorer with 11.4 points per game, has progressed from his freshman season despite his inconsistent play at times.
“Believe this or not, he’s a better player today than he was when he stepped foot on campus,” Martin said. “He’s a better player today than he was at this time last year. He’s got a ways to go, but he works at it every single day.”
Thornwell has started to pick up his play as of late, scoring in double-digits in seven straight games.
Going up against a youthful Missouri team, South Carolina will attempt to jump on the Tigers early. Missouri has yet to win an away game this season and has trailed at halftime in eight of its 10 SEC games.
The Tigers are led in scoring by sophomore forward Johnathan Williams III (12.0 points per game), but the Tigers average only 61.3 points per game, 313th nationally.
South Carolina will once again be without sophomore guard Justin McKie, who has missed the last four games due to concussion-related symptoms.
In spite of his team’s struggles, Martin, who is in his third year with South Carolina, maintains that he’s proud of his players and that becoming a better team is a process that takes time.
“We all made an oath to do this together,” Martin said. “We didn’t make an oath that we’d come in here and winning was going to be easy.”