South Carolina's path to flipping the season begins now

South Carolina basketball is 10-6 but 0-3 in SEC play. The Gamecocks (who own the toughest 2025 portion of any team’s 2024-2025 schedule) are behind where they would like to be in the conference standings, but hope should not be lost for the season. Lamont Paris’ team has a path to flipping the script and challenging for another NCAA Tournament berth. However, to be there at season’s end, Carolina has to find that path immediately.

On Wednesday evening, South Carolina will play the Vanderbilt Commodores in Nashville. 1-2 in SEC play, Vanderbilt still is a possible NCAA Tournament team. Unfortunately for the Gamecocks, that is true of every SEC team remaining on the schedule. Nothing gets any easier moving forward.

That’s why a mid-season turnaround has to start now.

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South Carolina’s next two games are among its most manageable on paper. Following the road contest against Vandy, the Gamecocks go to Norman, Oklahoma for a matchup with the (currently) 0-3 Sooners. Winning both is essential as Paris and company face ranked opponents in six of the next seven contests after that.

Just because the next two SEC games are more “manageable,” doesn’t mean that earning wins over Vanderbilt and Oklahoma will come easy. The Commodores entered New Year’s Day with a 12-1 record with their only loss coming to likely tourney squad Drake on a neutral site court. The Sooners earned rankings as high as 12th earlier this season after non-conference wins over five power conference opponents.

If the Gamecocks can earn a pair of wins this week, not only will they improve their record, but they could build some confidence and, hopefully, find some additional answers along the way.

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On the court, South Carolina must clean up a few things to have a chance at making this happen.

First, and perhaps most obviously, the Gamecocks have to find some efficiency on offense. South Carolina only has three players shooting better than 41% from the field this season. Collin Murray-Boyles (59%) and Nick Pringle (64%) take and make good shots, and Zach Davis (46%) has had good games. The rest of the team is shooting under 36% on the year. When compared to other SEC teams, USC is 15th in the league in shooting efficiency and 12th in 3-point shooting efficiency. That has to improve for the offense to put enough points on the board to win in the SEC.

Shooting isn’t the team’s only issue on offense, though. South Carolina ranks in the bottom half of the SEC in assists and turnovers—a bad combination. The Gamecocks outperformed expectations on offense during the 2023-2024 season largely because they never turned the ball over. With their overall limitations on that end of the floor, the USC offense must return to that.

Redshirt freshman wing Arden Conyer had a good showing in the Gamecocks’ close loss to Auburn this weekend. If he can build off of his 13-point performance and true freshman Cam Scott can “figure it out” and live up to his 4-star potential, perhaps they can be the shot in the arm the South Carolina offense needs. Murray-Boyles will need to continue being a star, and a few more outside shots from No. 30 could go a long way, too.

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Defensively, Coach Paris’ team isn’t bad, but they haven’t played up to their capabilities at times this season. South Carolina’s style limits opposing teams’ total shot attempts, but at the time of this writing, the Gamecocks rank 2nd-worst and 4th-worst in the conference in field goal percentage allowed and 3-point field goal percentage allowed, respectively.

Last year’s perimeter defense was excellent, but that hasn’t translated to the 2024-2025 season. Because of that, the Gamecocks haven’t been able to overcome their inability to force possession changes. USC is last in the SEC in steals, second-to-last in blocks, and last in turnovers forced. Those statistical shortcomings aren’t a big problem when a team defends well. When they don’t, though, those numbers spell disaster.

South Carolina’s defensive scheme isn’t designed to take risks or have players go for extra steals and blocks; instead, it focuses on fundamentals and effort. For the most part, that’s what the Gamecocks did against Auburn, and they forced the Tigers into their lowest total scoring output of the year in a near-upset on Saturday. More performances with that level of defense will yield wins.

Zach Davis, Collin Murray-Boyles, and Nick Pringle all have elite defensive potential. If all three can live up to their ability as stoppers, the entire team will benefit. Potentially helping matters, post player Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk had a really nice defensive outing in his last game, and Arden Conyers brings some size to the guard rotation that hasn’t been there at times this season.

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These improvements will have to come despite South Carolina being shorthanded right now. Senior wing Myles Stute (one of the team’s top shooters) is out indefinitely as he deals with blood clots. Senior guard Jamarii Thomas (USC’s second-leading scorer) is out for at least a couple more weeks with a knee sprain.

Both games this week present Quad 1 opportunities for the Gamecocks. Wins should boost the team’s NET ranking significantly as South Carolina is 1-5 combined in Quad 1 and Quad 2 chances so far this season. Currently No. 94 in the NET, USC will rise quickly if they win their fair share of SEC games. Because of the conference’s strength, every game on Carolina’s schedule will be a Quad 1 or Quad 2 battle.

The path to turning around this season will be difficult, but it must begin this week. The first steps along that path will come Wednesday night against Vanderbilt. The Gamecocks and Commodores will tip off at 6:00 p.m. in Nashville’s Memorial Gymnasium. SEC Network will broadcast the contest, while the ESPN app makes it available for streaming.

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