South Carolina’s offense remained aggressive in Tuesday night's 87-58 win over Radford by attacking the basket and finding the open man when the defense showed help.
Even when the Highlanders switched to a zone for brief periods, the Gamecocks slowly picked that apart as well by moving the ball from side to side and getting open shots.
In total, South Carolina tallied up 22 assists on 34 made field goals. This is the fourth straight game that the Gamecocks have assisted on over half of their made field goals with the most coming against North Carolina A&T to open up the season.
“It's beautiful,” junior forward Elijah Strong said. “Everybody wants to play for a team like this because it could be anybody's given night at any time ... We just trust each other.”
Redshirt senior guards Kobe Knox and Meechie Johnson both led the team with five assists each. This was the 18th game that Johnson has had five or more assists. In total, nine different Gamecocks had at least one or more assists.
Before Tuesday night's game the Gamecocks were tied for 41st in the country in assists per game with 19.
South Carolina's bench also contributed heavily on Tuesday, as they scored 50 points. Twenty-nine of these points came from Strong and freshman guard Eli Ellis. Strong’s 15 points is the first time this season that the Gamecocks' leading scorer came off the bench.
“We have a lot of guys that can do something on any particular day,” head coach Lamont Paris said. “It is nice to have just a lot of guys that can go in, and you feel comfortable about what they’re going to do when they get out there.”
Freshman guard Grant Polk also came into the game from off the bench and was able to score 8 points that included two threes.
In the previous three games for South Carolina, the team has had at least one player come off the bench to score double figures. No matter if a player started or came off the bench, the Gamecocks were dominant inside. South Carolina scored 48 of its 87 points inside the paint.
Paris said part of their dominance inside was due to having successful post ups with players such as Strong and Ellis and good cuts from other players towards the basket.
“You have to be able to generate some stuff around the basket,” Paris said. "It was good to get those points generated."
The only area that the Gamecocks struggled in was from behind the three point line, going just 7-25 from distance. This is the second straight game that the Gamecocks have shot under 32% from three.
So far this season, the South Carolina offense has performed better than the 2024-25 team. Through four games this season the Gamecocks are averaging 85.5 points per game while last year's team averaged just 77 points in the same number of games played.
In the season opener against North Carolina A&T, the Gamecocks scored 91 points, a mark they did manage to reach last season until Dec. 17, when they beat Clemson in overtime.
The 2024-25 team finished the year with averaging 69.8 points per game which ranked them 287th among all Division I schools. Once the Gamecocks entered SEC play last season, they scored over 70 points just four times, bringing their total points per game down.
South Carolina still has well over half of their season to play, but through four games the 2025-26 Gamecocks look poised to remain a much improved offensive unit than last year's team. In Paris's career at South Carolina, the Gamecocks are 16-0 when scoring 80 or more.