Gamecocks drop another game in Charleston Classic

South Carolina came to Charleston needing at least one win to stay above .500 in the early portion of the season. 

The Gamecocks have one more shot to do it after a disappointing 69-60 loss Friday night to Davidson, coming on the heels of a blowout loss to Colorado State.

Click for Friday’s box score

“We have to get better. There’s no question about that. This isn’t a finished product. It wouldn’t be a finished product if we were 4-0,” Lamont Paris said. “We have to continue to grow and get better.” 

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How it happened

In what a pretty well-paced first half, the Gamecocks went through scoring droughts, trailing by as many as seven halfway through the half. But things changed when the Gamecocks switched to a zone and befuddled the Davidson offense. 

The Gamecocks rattled off a 13-2 run to end the half, capped by Chico Carter’s fourth three of the first half with just a few seconds left. 

“I think we ran it 13 possessions at the end of the half and I don’t think they scored. That’s not to say they got no good shots, there were a couple sprinkled in there,” Paris said. “I’m sure at halftime they spent some time adjusting to that.”

Davidson would stay scrappy, though, stifling South Carolina for long stretches at the start of the second half. The Wildcats made their move right around the halfway point of the first half. South Carolina started 2-for-10 from the field and went scoreless for over two minutes while Davidson took a four-point lead with 11:37 to play. 

“They had a stretch where they scored eight points in (the zone) in a row. One was something on our end that we didn’t recognize and handle,” Paris said. “Two were shots, I’ve done this a long time, where they initially hit the rim and normally it doesn’t go through the net.”

Carter, who had 12 points on 4-for-6 shooting in the first half, didn’t score his first points in the second until the 10-minute mark. He ultimately finished with a team-high 24 points while shooting 8-for-13 from the field. 

Davidson, meanwhile, began heating up. Leading scorer Foster Loyer rattled home four three-pointers as the Gamecocks allowed Davidson to shoot over 48 percent from the field after halftime.

Jacobi Wright, having to play for an injured Meechie Johnson, guarded Loyer and ultimately played 38 of the 40 minutes while in his first start of the season.

“That’s not what he’s been asked to do. I thought he did a good job. He was guarding Foster Loyer for most of the game who never stops moving and is crafty on the offensive end,” Paris said. “I thought he did a good job handling that. When you do that, it’s hard to have a super-productive offensive day in terms of scoring baskets because it’s a lot.”

The Gamecocks were also without starting point guard Meechie Johnson, who is day-to-day with an ankle injury he sustained in the season opener. 

“Today was a no, tomorrow’s tomorrow. We’ll see what that looks like. We have a day off. Hopefully, that helps,” Paris said. “We’ll see what that looks like on Sunday.”

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Two observations

Defense needs some cleaning up–South Carolina struggled defensively for most of the game, outside of that spurt in the first half where Davidson was confused by the zone. The Gamecocks struggled coming off screens and had some late rotations. It led to far too many open looks for a good shooting opponent. 

“I thought we did a pretty good job on the screening as a general rule and handled stuff pretty well. There weren’t a lot of snafus. They make you communicate and stick to principles and I thought we did a pretty good job of that,” Paris said. “Again, there were a couple of one-on-one situations we didn’t handle well. A couple were in the post, a couple on the perimeter. As a general rule, for all the screening they do, we did a fairly decent job overall.” 

South Carolina has to get in transition more–The Gamecocks aren’t a team right now that can execute halfcourt offense consistently. To combat that, South Carolina has to generate more open court chances. The Gamecocks forced 13 turnovers and got just 11 fastbreak points while getting 11 points off turnovers. 

Key stat

36 percent: Most of the stats from Saturday’s game were relatively close outside of the three-point shooting percentage. Davidson, at one point, was shooting 44 percent to the Gamecocks’ 36. It was ultimately a nine-point loss and Davidson hit three more three-pointers than South Carolina. 

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Turning point

With just over 18 minutes to play, Hayden Brown blocked a shot and flexed over the Davidson player. After a shove, both Brown and Grant Huffman were assessed technicals. At that point, the Gamecocks were also up five. Davidson would take the lead soon after and never trail again.

Up next

South Carolina now has an early one Sunday morning while playing Bob Richey’s Furman Paladins at 10:30 a.m. on ESPNews. 

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