Alabama's strong depth too much for South Carolina to overcome in second-straight SEC loss

It would’ve been hard to play much worse than South Carolina did on Saturday. With the schedule only getting tougher, it was going to be hard to expect an immediate turnaround. So at the very least, a sign of life or some progress would’ve been acceptable.

The Gamecocks, fresh off a 35-point loss to Mississippi State, looked like a better bunch on Wednesday night. But playing slightly better wasn’t going to be enough against No. 5 Alabama. The Crimson Tide were able to handle the Gamecocks (10-5, 0-2 SEC), winning 88-68 at Colonial Life Arena.

“Well, (Alabama) has a good team. I think we already knew that and anticipated that. They were really aggressive and I think that showed itself at times,” head coach Lamont Paris said. “… It’s a hard schedule, obviously. Auburn’s not going to care too much about how things went today.”

How it happened

Unlike the way it had been playing recently, South Carolina showed some good energy and aggression early as it jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead. Through four minutes, it held on to the lead and gave Alabama some fits defensively, making each possession a tough one.

But despite their best efforts, the Gamecocks could only hold on for so long before Alabama got going. The Crimson Tide took their first lead with 15:08 to go in the first half and never let it go again. A big part of their early success on Wednesday came from leading scorer Mark Sears, who drilled his first five shots of the game en route to a 16-point first half showing.

Sears was much more quiet in the second half after coming out of the gates on fire. He still had a good performance, though, finishing with 22 points on 7-of-12 shooting, along with four made three-pointers.

With Alabama rotating 10 players in and out, it became clear the depth was making a big difference. And after the Tide went on a 14-2 run over a six-minute stretch to take a double-digit point lead, South Carolina didn’t stand much of a chance in hoping to keep up.

“They’ve got a lot of good players. They’re very versatile. When they have that spacing and they drive as good as they do, it puts us in a tough situation with help, because we don’t want to help off of too many threes,” Jacobi Wright said.

“They’ve got good ball players. It’s tough. To combat that, you’ve got to play better one-on-one defense.”

While the Gamecocks looked better in the first half, they still had their issues. Despite shooting 42.3 percent from the field, they turned the ball over eight times and racked up a handful of fouls, leading to and-one opportunities for Alabama.

The Tide, which shot an insane 60 percent from the floor, went into the break with a comfortable 45-28 lead.

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South Carolina continued to fight hard and even played fairly well after halftime, shooting near a 60 percent clip early on. The problem was that Alabama, even when it wasn’t at its best, continued to do enough to remain ahead by plenty.

The lead slightly fluctuated, still with the Tide up by double digits, but it kept going back and forth between the teens and a 20-point cushion. Alabama got the lead back up to 20 in the final minutes after South Carolina cut into the deficit and made it a 14-point game.

The Gamecocks had four starters score double digits after the starting five combined for just 22 points against Mississippi State. Jacobi Wright led the way with 20, Jamarii Thomas had 15 before fouling out, and Nick Pringle, playing his first game against his former team, finished with 13. Starting in place of Myles Stute, who’s out indefinitely due to a blood clot, Zachary Davis had 10 points on 4-of-9 shooting.

On the flip side, they received next to no production from their bench. It took nearly 39 minutes into the game before Arden Conyers, who played 18 minutes, made a jumper to give the team their first bench points. South Carolina wound up with four total points off the bench.

Two observations

Better but still plenty of room to grow— It certainly hasn’t helped with how the schedule has been in these early games of SEC play. The results have been far from ideal. But at the very least, they looked like a much more competitive team this time around. Now it’s just about what that next step will be going forward.

“I thought we could’ve competed better in some physical situations and attacked more aggressively from a physical standpoint than what we did,” Paris said. “That and still some things defensively that we have to clean up on just some rules. (Alabama) has good players. They’re going to beat you sometimes. But you have rules that kind of help you navigate some of that stuff.”

Should there be some concerns with Collin Murray-Boyles?—For as good of a player as he’s proven to be, you could say it’s just a little slump he’s going through. But through two games, Murray-Boyles hasn’t been good at all against SEC competition. After having more than turnovers than points in the opener, the sophomore forward went for six points on 1-of-6 shooting with eight rebounds on Wednesday.

Key stat

39 to 4—If there’s any statistic that shows how much good depth Alabama has compared to South Carolina, look no further than the bench points. The Tide finished with 39 on the night. Sure, Sears and the rest of the starting five are really good. But there was still enough production from other players to make an impact in this game. Meanwhile, the Gamecocks nearly went for a big goose egg in bench points, finishing with four.

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Turning point

This was a competitive game in the early minutes of the first half, with South Carolina keeping it close. However, after Alabama went on a 14-2 run over a six-minute period to take a 14-point lead, this set the tone for how the game would go. After trailing for the first four minutes of the game, the Tide were comfortably ahead the rest of the way.

Up next

South Carolina will be back at home to take on No. 2 Auburn on Saturday afternoon. Tip-off is at 1 p.m. on SEC Network.

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