Five things we learned about South Carolina from a two-game trip to Fort Myers

Thanksgiving dinner might not be served until Thursday. But South Carolina managed to sneak in a quick turkey feast one day early.

The Gamecocks, after falling to Xavier in a second half collapse, bounced back with a 70-60 win over the Virginia Tech Hokies in the third-place game of the Fort Myers Tip-Off on Wednesday.

South Carolina will head back to Columbia for a few days before going back out on the road to Boston College next week. It would’ve been great to come away with a 2-0 week in Florida. But a 1-1 split is a lot better than going winless.

Let’s look at five things we learned about South Carolina from this trip to the Sunshine State.

This team still has problems

We can only use the “it’s still early” excuse for so long. At some point, that phrase is going to become outdated. But in this case, it can be applied since the Gamecocks haven’t been able to fully put it together through seven games.

Give them some credit, they played pretty well this week in their two games. Outside of a rough second half showing against Xavier on Monday, they took care of business and showed some strides.

But South Carolina still has room for improvement — plenty of it at that. Sure, it beat a bad Virginia Tech team by 10 points but that game could’ve gotten out of hand when the lead was trimmed down in the second half. It didn’t in this case. Better opponents out there will make this team pay if they play like they did.

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What do we make of Jamarii Thomas?

This is a serious question. It’s been difficult to understand what he brings to the table for this team. He’s got the potential to be a good player this year, but he has been nothing but inconsistent so far. In these two games, Thomas shot 5-for-17 from the field and turned the ball over three times. For context, he picked up more personal fouls (6) than shots made.

There was a sequence in Wednesday’s game where he missed a shot and then quickly fouled the rebounder for no apparent reason other than to show his frustration. He then missed a wide-open three-pointer that led to Virginia Tech cutting the lead down even further.

He’s fine on defense. But let’s be real: he’s not Ta’Lon Cooper. Not even close. That’s not meant to sound disrespectful. But isn’t that who he’s supposed to be replacing on this team? Or maybe Meechie Johnson? The point is, he hasn’t lived up to the expectations yet. And he’s going to have to if South Carolina wants to get back to the NCAA Tournament again.

Zachary Davis is only getting better

It’s well known that Davis is one of, if not the best defender on this team. That’s always been his calling card. The offense? Meh. But hopefully coming along in the near future.

Well, it looks like that near future could be now. Look, he’s not going to turn into a 20 points per game scorer overnight, and he doesn’t need to be. South Carolina just needs him to provide good defense and occasional scoring off the bench, which he did an excellent job of this week.

Davis scored eight points on 3-of-8 shooting with four rebounds, two assists and two steals on Monday. But he was even better on Wednesday with 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting with seven rebounds and three assists.

He was able to get to the basket and make some tough shots in these games, which is a great sign. Now if he can just get his three-point shot in order, he’ll be much tougher to guard.

[Win two tickets to the South Carolina-Clemson MBB game]

Defense has shown improvement

Again, take out the second half against Xavier and let’s look at the rest of the numbers from this week. Outside of that one half where Xavier shot 54.8 percent from the field, the Musketeers were abysmal in the first half and went 11-of-32 shooting and 1-of-9 from behind the arc. Of course, when you put the two halves together, it becomes a better pie with a 44.4 percent shooting night. But still, that’s why some context helps.

When facing the Hokies two nights later, South Carolina was much more consistent in keeping them in check offensively. As a whole, Virginia Tech shot 39.4 percent and went 8-for-18 from deep. But that’s without mentioning it went through a couple of long scoring droughts, one of which lasted more than four minutes at the end of the game.

In this tournament, the Gamecocks racked up seven blocked shots and nine steals. Not too shabby. It’s still not perfect but that’s the case with the team in general. But you can’t deny there were times where this defense looked sharp.

Collin Murray-Boyles is inevitable

Even when you think you’ve got him locked down, you really don’t because he can still hurt you in so many other ways. Murray-Boyles might be a great scorer and rebounder who will always be in range of putting up a double-double. But he showed this week that he’s a great all-around player.

Of those seven blocked shots by South Carolina, five of them came from Murray-Boyles. He also stole five passes, showing just how good his awareness is. And he can still be the go-to scorer when he needs to be.

Even when he got into some foul trouble, he still made the big plays. Especially against Virginia Tech, he hit some big shots in the final minutes to keep separation to avoid a comeback.

The sophomore forward took some shots from the outside and didn’t make any of them. But does it really matter when he is solid in just about every other facet of the game? Outside of one rough game against Indiana, Murray-Boyles has been phenomenal this year. It’s safe to say the Gamecocks will go as far as he goes.

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