A South Carolina quote about SEC fuels Alabama in lopsided win

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – After South Carolina’s win over Florida A&M, transfer guard Myles Stute was asked if the Gamecocks were ready for conference play after posting a 12-1 record.

“I hope they’re ready for us,” said Stute, a transfer from Vanderbilt.

Alabama heard that postgame soundbite from two weeks ago and brought it up after handing South Carolina its second – and most lopsided – loss of the season Tuesday night in Coleman Coliseum. The Crimson Tide advanced to 10-5 (2-0 SEC) with a 74-47 home win.

After the game, head coach Nate Oats mentioned Stute’s comment in his opening statement.

“South Carolina is a confident team that’s been winning,” Oats said. “I think Myles Stute had made the comment that the SEC wasn’t ready for South Carolina. We made sure we played for our guys. We made the point we’ve been the team that’s been winning the SEC here lately, not South Carolina. But they were confident. They came in ready to play. Their coach has done a great job, (Lamont) Paris is a good coach and they got us out of the gate.

“I didn’t think we were ready to play. We had four turnovers our first five possessions. They scored 13 quick ones. After we got settled in, we did a really good job. The rest of the first half, we did a great job. We had multiple 4-minute battles between media timeouts where they didn’t score a point in the second half. That’s the defense we’re looking for moving forward.”

After Alabama’s Aaron Estrada made a three to open the game, the Gamecocks went on a 10-0 run. A Collin Murray-Boyles triple gave Carolina a 15-8 lead at the 12:26 mark of the first half before the Crimson Tide started to take control, regaining the lead with an 8-0 run of its own to begin a battle for the rest of the first period before a slim 30-29 edge at halftime.

Including an Estrada jumper to end the first half, Alabama scored 15 straight points as the Tide onslaught began. The home team’s lead ballooned to as many as 29 points, and much to Oats’ delight, the Tide defense was stellar in the second half as UA outscored USC, 44-18.

Oats said players sensed fatigue in their opponent and wanted to keep their foot on the gas.

“I did think they got a little tired,” said Oats, talking tempo. “They’re used to playing so slow, and we ran them up and down a little bit. They had some guys that were gassed. Our guys said it. They tried to call some timeouts to stem the tide a little bit, but our guys said, ‘They’re tired. They’re ready to crack. Let’s crack them.’ I thought we did a good job. 

“In the past, the coach would have called a timeout after we go on a run and they go on a run. We didn’t do that tonight. I thought they called a timeout, we come out of the timeout, got stops and kept the momentum going our way. So a big conference win.”

Before the final media timeout, USC’s leading scorer Meechie Johnson and Alabama walk-on Max Scharnowski, who was sitting on the bench, were called for offsetting technical fouls. Paris said after the game that Johnson is not an instigator, but Oats said the Gamecock players were talking throughout the entire game – and once again brought up Stute’s quote. 

“They said that our guys were kind of talking,” Oats explained. “There was a lot of talking. That run they came out of the game (with) 13, their guys were yelling at our bench for whatever reason, I don’t know. 

“They made the statement the SEC isn’t ready for them. I guess we’ll see if the SEC is ready for them. This SEC team was ready for them. They were talking an awful lot during the game. I don’t condone us talking to the other team off the bench, but I heard what their guys were saying right out of the gate. So that quick 13-point run at the beginning of the game didn’t last very long.”

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