Five things we learned from South Carolina's season-opening loss to North Florida

What the heck happened? How did South Carolina lose to this team? Are we sure this team is going to be good again?

These are probably just a few of the questions you’re asking yourself the morning after South Carolina suffered an ugly loss to say the least. The Gamecocks (0-1) fell to North Florida, 74-71, in the season opener on Monday at Colonial Life Arena.

There is no doubt a lot of reason to be concerned. But it’s just one game and upset losses happen all the time in college basketball. It just so happened South Carolina’s came right out of the gate.

Here are five things we learned from watching the way the Gamecocks performed on Monday.

South Carolina lacked energy. North Florida just wanted it more

If you just watched the way in which this game unfolded, you could tell one team was playing like everything was on the line and the other was kind of just going through the motions. North Florida, who got paid $95,000 to play this game, looked like a team with more urgency than South Carolina.

And this isn’t some assumption or educated guess based on what we saw. This is the truth. Even Lamont Paris could tell his team lacked some energy. Maybe it’s because of the opponent they were playing. But it’s the home opener. How is that not enough to be excited about?

With how lackadaisical the Gamecocks looked, North Florida took complete advantage of the situation and played a very good game. The Ospreys had their fair share of struggles, but when it came down to it, they hit the key shots when they needed to and made enough plays to win the game.

Yes, it’s only one game, but South Carolina needs to be more energized moving forward. Even though this wasn’t a marquee game on the schedule, there is no excuse to lose to a mid-major team that barely finished .500 last season.

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Free throw shooting was… well, a lot of things

Horrendous? Awful? Pitiful? Inexcusably bad? You get the point. South Carolina struggled immensely at the free throw line on Monday and it proved to be a big difference maker in the game.

The Gamecocks went 14-for-25 at the line, good for 56 percent as a team. They were better in the second half as they only missed four free throws on 11 attempts. But as a whole, the amount of misses they had at the line was a tough pill to swallow. And it didn’t have to be that way. If South Carolina missed only half of those attempts, it might not have lost the game.

The good news is that this should be a simple fix moving forward. As Lamont Paris simply put it, the way to correct free throw shooting is by practicing free throw shooting.

“I always tell them, ‘When your name gets called at the free throw line, whenever that is, you gotta stand up,’” Paris said. “They call your name. Referee gives you the ball. Stand up and make them. We didn’t do that, and it seemed to be contagious.”

Not to pin the missed shots on one guy, but it was really tough to see Nick Pringle continuously go to the line and miss at least one of two free throws. In some cases, he missed both shots. The transfer forward finished 3-for-8 on the night. Collin Murray-Boyles also had a rough night on his free throws, making only half of his shots (3-of-6).

Making free throws sounds like such an easy thing to do. It’s definitely not, especially at certain points in the game. But the rate at which South Carolina has missed in the early going should be concerning. It has to get fixed soon.

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Do we know who the leaders are?

This might be a hot take, but it definitely didn’t feel like there were bonafide leaders on the floor for the Gamecocks. That’s not a knock on anybody. But it looked and felt that way. It’s just hard to tell who those guys will be.

This was one of the big questions coming into the season. South Carolina definitely had the talent in place to replace the likes of what Ta’Lon Cooper, Meechie Johnson and BJ Mack brought as players. But replacing what those guys brought from a leadership standpoint was a whole other story. Part of what made last year’s team work so well was they had the veterans in the locker room to weather any storm. Can this year’s team confidently say they have those guys in there right now?

To be fair, let’s give this take a little bit more time before really judging it full on. If by Christmas time things aren’t going well and it doesn’t feel like much has changed, maybe this will be a fair question to ask. But moving forward, it’s safe to say South Carolina is going to need somebody to step up.

Need to see more from the offense

Even though South Carolina shot 46.4 percent from the field, it didn’t feel like it was a great shooting night. The Gamecocks missed a lot of shots close to the basket with six missed layups. They also didn’t make a ton of three-point shots, which in a game like this against a team that loves to shoot from deep, it made a difference.

It’s fair to say South Carolina could’ve had more scoring opportunities in this game, but it couldn’t consistently grab rebounds. The team was out rebounded 43-37, but they also lost the offensive rebound battle 15-9.

With as athletic as this team has looked, they struggled to consistently grab boards on Monday. And you’d expect South Carolina to win the rebound battle with the additions of Nick Pringle and Jordan Butler, combined with having Collin Murray-Boyles and Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk. The Gamecocks were the bigger, more athletic team, but they let a lot of second chance opportunities slip away from them.

There were some bright spots, though. Jacobi Wright came off the bench and knocked down 6-of-8 shots, good for 12 points. He seems to be at his best when he’s pulling up from mid-range. You’d like to see him get more time on the floor, but he’s already playing a lot of minutes. He was on the floor for 28 minutes on Monday.

But overall, there’s a lot of work to do to figure out what this offense will become. It starts with the front court playing to the level many expect them to do so. It felt like a lot of opportunities were left out on the floor. If that can improve going forward, so will this offense as a whole.

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This one won’t be forgotten anytime soon

This is a loss that is going to haunt South Carolina in the long run. When we get to Selection Sunday in March and South Carolina is fighting for a spot in the NCAA Tournament, this will be a game the selection committee brings up.

There’s almost no denying this game will be a Quad 4 loss on the schedule, which is a tier meant for the lowest ranked teams in college basketball. Not an ideal way to open the season.

So, if it’s a close call and we’re not sure if the Gamecocks will make the tournament, this could be a loss that keeps them out. The good news for them is it’s only one game and they will have plenty of chances to make this one seem like a distant memory.

However, the non-conference schedule is going to be a grind and this will not be the last loss of the year. More will come with 29 games to go. The question is, can South Carolina stack up enough good wins to make up for one bad loss? We’ll see. But as long as this team doesn’t suffer more bad losses like this one, then things should be fine.

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