South Carolina men’s basketball trailed early and never got back to even footing in an 87-68 road loss to Georgia Saturday.
A big focus during the week in practice was on rebounding. South Carolina ranks 15th in the SEC in average rebounds per game, which has been a reason why many close games have not gone the way of the Gamecocks.
Head coach Lamont Paris emphasized the importance of fixing that aspect of the game after the Tuesday night loss to Kentucky, where the Gamecocks were out-rebounded 48-28 by the Wildcats.
“I think we have a lot of guys that don’t view themselves as the guy that goes and gets it,” Paris said. “I’m going to spend all day tomorrow devising the defense that can prevent offensive rebounds from happening.”
The devised defense was effective, as the Gamecocks out-rebounded Georgia 35 to 28.
South Carolina also had 15 offensive rebounds compared to Georgia’s 4, which was a big improvement after getting out-rebounded on the offensive glass 18 to five against Kentucky.
However, outside of rebounding, the same issues that have plagued this team for much of the season so far were in full force Saturday.
South Carolina struggled from beyond the arc, finishing the game 6-24 (25%) from the 3-point line and just 22-59 (37.3%) from the field.
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, opened the game hitting five of their first six 3-point attempts, jumping out to an early 17-9 lead at home. They didn’t maintain that level of shooting throughout but still finished 12-30 (40%) from beyond the arc and 32-57 (56.1%) from the field.
Sophomore guard Jeremiah Wilkinson was largely behind this explosive offense, as he drained four 3-pointers on Saturday, including three in the first half, to lead the Bulldogs in scoring with 18 points.
The Gamecocks have experienced poor shooting nights like this all year, which has led them to be ranked 14th in the SEC in field goal percentage and 15th in the conference in 3-point percentage.
Freshman guard Eli Ellis made a 3-pointer to cut Georgia's lead to 6 points at 60-54. However, after his basket, South Carolina’s offense stalled, missing eight consecutive field-goal attempts as it found itself on the wrong side of a 10-0 run from Georgia, effectively sealing the win for the Bulldogs as they pulled away to a 70-54 lead with seven minutes left in the game.
South Carolina also had just nine assists in Saturday’s game. This marks the second straight game that the Gamecocks finished on nine assists. Comparatively, Georgia had 23 assists, giving it a much faster offense which allowed for more open looks.
The Gamecocks rank 13th in the SEC in assists per game. They have finished with under 10 assists in three of their last four games, losing all three games.
South Carolina was without starting graduate guard Myles Stute on Saturday, who has missed the last two games with concussion protocol.
"We're going to look at what some level of activity at practice looks like tomorrow," Paris said when asked about Stute's return. "I don't have a great update, unfortunately, for that."
South Carolina falls to 12-17, 3-13 SEC, and will have just two regular season games left to correct these issues before the SEC Tournament, which will begin in under two weeks.