Gamecocks 'still got that fire' in midst of tough stretch to begin SEC play

Look around. Not many are giving South Carolina a chance. Already being wrote off three games into SEC play with 15 to go.

BartTorvik gives the Gamecocks a 0.2 percent chance to make the NCAA Tournament. KenPom sees them finishing 4-14 in conference play, the same record they had in Lamont Paris’ first season. Don’t even bother looking into Bracketology; you won’t find them in any of the bracket projections.

With the way things have been going, it’s not hard to see why some have given up on South Carolina. With an 0-3 start in SEC play, the team is in a bit of a hole. But after going toe to toe with Auburn, soon to be the new No. 1 team in the country, and losing 66-63 on Saturday, they at least have a pulse. They aren’t dead quite yet.

“Still got that fire. Just because we lose doesn’t take away anything this team is trying to get to,” Collin Murray-Boyles said. “These games are really big for us. We’re gonna play each game like it’s our last. Us losing a big game like this doesn’t really do anything negative to us but pushes us to keep going forward.”

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South Carolina, who looked uncompetitive in blowout losses to Mississippi State and Alabama, had the lead going into the final two minutes against Auburn. It couldn’t hold on in the end, going through a scoring drought that lasted the final five minutes of the game. If anything, though, it proved it isn’t that far off from getting in the win column.

Beyond that, the players also now know it’s possible to go up against the best of the best with a fighting chance to win.

“We see what we can do. We see what we can hold teams to,” Murray-Boyles said. “This is our DNA. This is what we’re made of. We see what we need to do in order to get wins. We’re going to keep practicing and keep doing what coach is telling us.”

The schedule won’t get easier the rest of the way, especially with how good the SEC is this year. But it won’t get any harder than facing the two best teams in the conference right out of the gate in Alabama and Auburn.

[South Carolina-LSU WBB: Win tickets]

The Gamecocks will be on the road this week, with stops at Vanderbilt on Wednesday and Oklahoma on Saturday. There’s still a long way to go before they can get in any tournament conversations, but this could be a good starting point for them after playing those challenging games.

“You have to turn the page and get to the next thing, because it’s such a good league. I mean, there a lot of different ways that you could be No. 8 in the country and come through these last three games and be 0-3. So, I think the biggest thing is can you turn the page?” Paris said.

“I think if we had lost by 27, I think it’s harder to turn the page for a young person. I think if you win the game in any way, but by double figures, I think it’s a lot easier to turn the page. So, I think our performance today probably falls somewhere in the middle of that and that there’s undoubtedly a lot of good things that we did.”

Paris saw progression based on the way his team performed against Auburn. Again, that performance was coming off games in which they lost by 35 and 20 points. While they couldn’t seal the deal and get the win, the next opportunity will show how much growth has happened since that tough loss.

“I think (growth) mandates that you respond properly to the failures and the obstacles that are there. That’s what those things are for is to incite growth,” he said. “But it only happens with a proper reaction to that. And so, we talked about that and hopefully the guys will, and we’ll be ready to go.”

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