How to watch/what to watch for: South Carolina opens season with exhibition vs. Wooster

At long last, college basketball season is finally here. After surprising everyone last year and making it to the NCAA Tournament with 26 wins, South Carolina will open the 2024-25 season with an exhibition game against Wooster on Wednesday.

Tip-off is at 7 p.m. at Colonial Life Arena.

Here are some things to watch for.

What will the starting lineup and rotation look like?

Outside of a few times where the media was able to view practice, this will be the first time that many will get to watch this year’s Gamecocks team in action. And with that comes one big question: what will the starting five be?

That question won’t truly be answered until we get closer to tip-off. But at the moment, here’s a good, educated guess at who might be starting on Wednesday.

Jamarii Thomas, guard

Cam Scott, guard

Zachary Davis, guard

Collin Murray-Boyles, forward

Nick Pringle, forward

By no means does this indicate these will be the five starters on the floor. Things could always change. But the front court should already be a lock with Murray-Boyles and Pringle. Assuming Lamont Paris runs out a three-guard lineup, it could be a little more up for debate with who starts. This just feels like what the five could look like based on all that’s been said during the preseason when speaking to Paris and co.

As for the bench, everyone that’s healthy should see time on the floor in this game since it’s an exhibition. It will be a good chance to see how the depth of the team looks heading into the season.

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Cam Scott’s college debut

While this is just an exhibition, this will be the first time Scott suits up in a Gamecock uniform. It’s been a long time coming to get to this day as the freshman guard was originally committed to play at Texas but de-committed and decided to stay home at South Carolina.

There has been plenty of buzz and excitement around the Lexington, S.C. native. Paris recently said in a joking manner that he would work for free next year if Scott didn’t make the All-SEC Freshman team. So, just based on that alone, the sky should be the limit if not higher for him this season.

Even if he doesn’t start in this game, he should still play a handful of minutes as will be the case throughout the season. Once he takes the floor for the first time, there will surely be a lot of anticipation to see how he performs.

Will Austin Herro play?

There will be more of solidified answer to this once the team takes the floor for warm-ups and the game begins, but it will be interesting to see what Austin Herro’s status is for Wednesday’s exhibition. The redshirt freshman guard has been dealing with the injury bug in the weeks leading up to the season.

Even if he doesn’t play, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Again, it’s just an exhibition game and doesn’t count for anything other than pride. The last thing anyone wants is someone to get hurt in this game right before the regular season begins on Monday.

Herro walked on at South Carolina last season and didn’t play at all as he ended up redshirting. He wound up earning a scholarship during the offseason and should play a role as a solid shooter for the Gamecocks this year.

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Defense focused on becoming more ‘elite’

Throughout the summer, Paris and the coaching staff didn’t harp too much on defense and instead focused on helping the players, new and old, learning the system. Once the preseason began, the focus shifted over to defense and how to build off last season’s successes in that area.

“We’re hanging our hat on defense right now,” said assistant coach Will Bailey at the team’s media day last week. “That’s our main goal right now, to become one of the elite teams in the country, defensively.”

The Gamecocks were pretty solid defensively in the 2023-24 season as they ranked 71st in adjusted defensive efficiency. They held teams to 67.6 points per game, good for second in the SEC.

A big reason for their overall success was whenever they’d switch to the 1-3-1, a zone defense that created issues for opposing teams, especially down the stretch in conference play. Will that be the case again this year or will Paris have more tricks up his sleeve?

Scouting the opponent

Wooster is a Division III school located in Wooster, Ohio. It may seem like a random team to play in an exhibition game, but it happens to be Paris’ alma mater. Paris played for the Fighting Scots from 1992-96.

Last season, Wooster went 18-10 overall and 12-4 in conference play. The Fighting Scots advanced all the way to the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament championship game where they’d lose to Wabash College, 75-64.

Wooster returns all five starters from last year’s team, led by guard Ashton Moore, who averaged 15.7 points per game on 50 percent shooting from the field. Moore also shot 42.1 percent from three-point range. Other key starters include Nick Everett, JJ Cline, and Jamir Billings, who all started in the team’s 28 games last year. Jaiden Cox-Holloway is the only other returning starter, though he only started in 17 games.

The Fighting Scots are led by head coach Doug Cline, a 1995 graduate of the school. Cline and Paris were teammates together at Wooster for three seasons. He’s going into his 29th season with the program but has been the head coach since the 2020-21 season after taking over for Steve Moore, Paris’ former head coach during his playing days.

Wooster will open its regular season with Yeshiva on Sunday, Nov. 10.

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Game details

Who: South Carolina vs. Wooster (exhibition)

When: Wednesday, Oct. 30 at 7 p.m.

Where: Colonial Life Arena (18,000)

How to watch/listen: There is no TV broadcast for this game. However, Derek Scott (play-by-play) and Casey Manning (analyst) will provide a live internet broadcast of the game available on GamecocksOnline.com and the Tune-In App. For those interested in going to the game, admission is free and parking in the arena lots will be $20 via credit card only. There will be game updates on The Insiders Forum. 

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