Shane Beamer provides update on South Carolina injuries

South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer provided injury updates on offensive lineman Tree Babalade and wide receivers Ahmarean Brown and Xavier Legette after the team’s 34-12 loss to Missouri.

All three were starters in the game.

“Legette’s got an upper body injury,” Beamer said after the loss, which is the third-straight defeat for the team. “Don’t know the timeframe on his return. Tree hurt his knee. Don’t have an update on that one other than just a knee injury. We’ll see tomorrow when we get back. AB’s got a little bit of a hamstring.”

Legette, who was injured on a kickoff return in the first half, is the team’s leading wide receiver with 38 catches for 736 yards and three touchdowns. No other player on the roster has more than 256 receiving yards. Brown has 15 catches for 155 yards on the season.

The loss of Babalade, a true freshman, was a particular brutal loss for the team to deal with, Beamer said, because Vershon Lee was already out injured.

“We could not afford to lose an offensive lineman today. We were down obviously with Vershon not being here. That was not ideal going into the game against that front. We we gotta do a better job of protecting. We tried. We were chipping. We were max-protecting. We were moving the pocket. We’re trying to get the ball out of his hands quick. We knew it was gonna be a challenge to block these guys and didn’t do a good enough job of that.”

It was a bad first half that sunk the Gamecocks on Saturday as the Tigers jumped out to a 24-3 halftime lead. South Carolina managed to hold Missouri scoreless in the third quarter but Missouri tacked on 10 points in the final frame to win the game running away.

The Gamecocks rushing attack managed only 69 yards all day on 29 carries for an average of 2.4 yards per rush.

The defeat drops the Gamecocks to 2-5 on the season with a 1-4 conference record. The has gone about one month since winning its last game against Mississippi State.

They are second-to-last in the SEC East standings, with only 0-4 Vanderbilt behind them. Missouri is tied with Florida for second place.

“We’re facing a lot of adversity to say the least,” Beamer said. “The record’s not where it wants to be and with our injury situation, it’s not ideal.”