South Carolina comes up short in road loss to Tennessee in regular season finale

South Carolina hasn’t been very good away from home this season. Coming into Saturday’s game at Tennessee, it only had one road win all year, which came back on Dec. 3.

Despite all this, the Gamecocks (12-19, 2-16 SEC) put up a good fight and made the No. 4 Vols sweat for a period of time. But they fell short in a 75-65 loss to close out the regular season.

How it happened

South Carolina found itself in a 10-point hole with under nine minutes to go in the first half after getting off to an ugly 1-for-14 start from behind the arc. The Gamecocks weren’t consistently missing on the plethora of open looks that they had.

For as many shots as they missed, though, they weren’t turning the ball over at a high rate, with only three turnovers in the first half. And when the shots started to fall during an all-important 7-0 run, this gave South Carolina the spark it needed.

The Gamecocks fought from behind and captured their first lead of the day with just over two minutes left before the break. Tennessee, who still managed to shoot 50 percent in the half, played equally as sloppy at times and missed on some key opportunities.

The main constants who helped keep South Carolina in it were Jamarii Thomas and Nick Pringle, who made eight of its 10 first-half baskets. Thomas had 14 points with a trio of made threes, while Pringle had nine points and nine rebounds on 4-of-8 shooting at the break. This all came while Collin Murray-Boyles was held to one point. The Vols converted on an and-one opportunity to take a tied game into halftime.

Things remained even in the early minutes of the second half as the Gamecocks found themselves with a one-point lead. But Chaz Lanier, who only had three points in the first half, got hot and had 20 seccond-half points. Tennessee went back up by double digits with under nine minutes to go and never fell behind again.

Even though Murray-Boyles only had seven points, the others around him stepped up in a big way. Thomas led the way with 20 points on 5-of-15 shooting. Pringle finished with a double-double and had 16 points and 14 rebounds. But besides that, it wasn’t a great shooting day for the team as they went 20-of-57 (35.1 percent) from the floor.

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Two observations

Hung in there on the road—South Carolina’s struggles away from Colonial Life Arena have been prevalent throughout the entire season. Coming into Saturday, the Gamecocks were 1-9 in road games. That record now moves 1-10 after losing to Tennessee, but they deserve some credit for playing tough in a hostile environment.

Three-point shooting was abysmal—Going back to the Georgia loss the other night, a big reason why South Carolina hung around in that game was 10 made three-pointers. In Knoxville, though, the three-point shooting was not very good. The Gamecocks went 8-for-36 from deep (22.2 percent). In what was a close game for most of the afternoon, a few more made shots could’ve been the difference.

Key stat

54.2 percent—Compared to South Carolina’s not so great shooting percentage, Tennesee was fairly consistent for most of the game. The Vols finished 30-of-55 from the field, good for 54.2 percent.

Turning point

After an uncharacteristic first half performance, Tennessee seemingly woke up and shot 58.6 percent from the field after halftime. This helped build itself a lead to hold onto for the backend of the second half.

Up next

South Carolina will begin SEC Tournament play as the No. 16 seed on Wednesday in Nashville, Tennessee. The Gamecocks will face No. 9 seed Arkansas in the first round. Tip-off will be at 1 p.m. on SEC Network.

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