The moment where everything changed in South Carolina's disastrous loss to Florida

South Carolina couldn’t have played much better basketball than it did for the first 30 minutes on Wednesday. Everything was going its way after enduring so much hardship with five straight losses to open SEC play.

Zachary Davis came crashing in for a posterizing one-handed dunk to give the Gamecocks a 58-45 lead over No. 5 Florida with 8:49 to go in the second half. The home crowd, donning all black for the team’s blackout game, was electrifying. This was it. South Carolina was growing closer to getting over the hump to get that first win.

By the time the final buzzer sounded, it was all for naught. All the good vibes and energy were gone. Instead, it was Florida celebrating on the court after storming back to win 70-69, further extending the Gamecocks’ losing streak to six games.

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But what happened? How could South Carolina, in total command of the game, let a double-digit point lead slip away and come up short in the end? It’s pretty simple. After falling behind by 13 points, the Gators made one tweak that changed the trajectory of the game the rest of the way.

Florida decided to run a full-court press, which is something it hasn’t done a lot of this season. But the team was in a situation where it needed to go with it to try and get back in the game. And in the blink of an eye, the Gators cut the deficit down to six with seven minutes to go.

“You maybe get us once on it, we weren’t expecting it. We see it. We make some good passes; strong moves and we take advantage of it. That’s what I’m used to,” head coach Lamont Paris said.

“At minimal, you manipulate it enough that it doesn’t really impact their ability to score. Maybe it throws your rhythm off. Maybe your offensive possessions are a little more discombobulated because of it. At that point, you probably also have enough points mathematically, again, to bring the ship home if you just don’t turn the ball over in a way they can score.”

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Almost immediately, South Carolina was affected by the change in Florida’s defense. Despite the Gators pressing for nearly nine minutes in the second half, the Gamecocks couldn’t figure out ways to adjust. After only having three turnovers in the first half, they turned the ball over 12 times after halftime. Nine of those came in the final 8:45 of the game.

“Obviously being down, I think 14 with 12 minutes to go, it wasn’t looking great,” said Florida head coach Todd Golden. “But our guys were able to execute defensively and turn them over a little bit, and then step up and hit some really big shots.”

As the press continued to work, the lead shrunk until Florida tied the game with 52 seconds to go. Paris didn’t feel the Gamecocks were being aggressive, which led to the high rate in turnovers and letting the Gators get cheap, easy buckets. They wound up with 22 points off turnovers.

“They took the ball from us,” he said. “We didn’t use fakes. We were very passive in it. We weren’t strong with the ball.”

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After playing from behind all night long, Florida finally took the lead for good with five seconds remaining. Will Richard hit the go-ahead driving layup to complete the comeback and sent the Gamecocks back to the drawing board with a lot to figure out.

“We got fragile. We got to do better. Things like that can’t happen,” said Davis, who accounted for six turnovers. “… We can’t let those happen for the next game because the next team we play is the same way. Aggressive, hands in the passing lane and they just try to take the ball from you.”

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