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'Flush it and move on': South Carolina still within reach of all goals after loss to Auburn

imageby:Jack Veltri02/15/24

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Feb 14, 2024; Auburn, Alabama, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks guard Meechie Johnson (5) moves around Auburn Tigers forward Jaylin Williams (2) during the first half at Neville Arena. Mandatory Credit: John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

There wasn’t much to say in the locker room. It was just one of those nights where nothing went right and they knew it.

South Carolina walked off the floor on Wednesday having just suffered its largest loss of the year, a 101-61 defeat to Auburn. In the moment, it was a bad loss, but this team has been here before and they’ve responded accordingly.

The game that kept getting referenced was when the Gamecocks lost to Alabama by 27 points back on Jan. 9. After that loss, they went on to win eight of their next nine games and caught fire.

“Look at the Alabama game, that’s not a game that we wanted to lose by like 30 or whatever,” Meechie Johnson said. “But we were able to go on the road against Missouri and pull a tough one out and then go home and beat a top 15 team in the country against Kentucky.”

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With six games to go in the regular season, they’re in a similar spot. After suffering another blowout loss, how do they plan on responding this time? By moving on.

“We have to flush it and move on,” BJ Mack said. “Losing like this, it just wasn’t our night overall. But we have a bunch of older guys in here right now. So we just tell everyone to move onto the next game and get ready for Saturday against LSU.”

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There is a silver lining hidden somewhere in what was a night to forget. The Gamecocks still have plenty to play for. They’re currently 21-4 and in a good spot to be one of the top four seeds in the SEC Tournament. That would earn them a double bye.

“We’re still in a position to do a lot of great things that haven’t been done in Columbia in a long time. Honestly, we know we’ve got a chance to make something happen in March,” Johnson said. “So of course you don’t want to lose games like this, it sucks. But again, you are really able to go back to the drawing board and learn from a game like this.”

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When South Carolina went on its winning stretch following that Alabama, Johnson credited how the group stayed together and being who they are to having success. He knows that’s what it will take to do it again plus cleaning up some other things that went wrong in the Auburn game.

“We don’t really try to do anything out of our ordinary. And tonight, we probably didn’t do our ordinary as best as we do,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t help when you’re probably not playing your best defense and they’re making like every single shot and it goes in. So it’s kind of tough. But you just go back to the drawing board and coach always preaches on being solid, doing the basic, normal stuff. That’s what we’ll continue to do and we’ll just lay our eggs there.”

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