South Carolina continues slide with road loss against Kentucky

South Carolina’s streak has now reached double digits. Entering Rupp Arena having beaten the Wildcats in the past two matchups, the Gamecocks were outmatched against a more talented opponent.

The Gamecocks (10-13, 0-10 SEC) remain winless in SEC games after an 80-57 defeat to Kentucky in Lexington on Saturday afternoon. The loss means that South Carolina will finish the season without a winning record in SEC games for the fourth time in five years.

How it happened

Both offenses got off to slow starts. The teams combined to start 3-18 from the floor, and one of those makes was a goaltending call. However, after the first media timeout, both teams started to hit their shots, with Kentucky making five in a row at one point. This got them to a 13-11 lead.

After two consecutive threes, the Wildcats led by eight, 19-11, courtesy of an 11-0 run. From there, South Carolina’s defense settled in for a few minutes. Collin Murray-Boyles scored ten of the team’s first 16 points.

But after Collin Murray-Boyles picked up his second foul, the offense stagnated. Turnovers weren’t an issue. (Just four for the Gamecocks at the break.) But the team’s spacing virtually disappeared. South Carolina’s shot selection was visibly hampered. Field goal attempts hit the backboard, rim, and went everywhere besides the bottom of the net.

Despite a solid defensive effort from the Gamecocks in the first 20 minutes, the Kentucky offense didn’t fall victim to the same offensive pitfalls that South Carolina did. After some late buckets to close out the half, the Wildcats led 33-19 at the buzzer. The Gamecocks ended the first half with a single assist. That was on Collin Murray-Boyles’s made three. They had zero assists in the final 14 minutes of the half.

Besides Murray-Boyles (4-8), the rest of the team was a combined 4-26 from the field in the first half. Coming into the game averaging 19.5 PPG off the bench, the Gamecocks didn’t manage a single point from players off the bench in the first half. That was despite a 10-man rotation in the first half after Murray-Boyles entered foul trouble.

Once the second half started, Kentucky hit their first two shots, opening the lead up to 18 points after a Lamont Butler two. But Nick Pringle blocked Otega Oweh on a dunk attempt to gain some momentum prior to the first media timeout of the second half. A small 11-4 run by the Gamecocks brought the lead down to 41-30 with 14:49 to go in the second period.

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Brandon Garrison then managed to score inside and subsequently block Collin Murray-Boyles’s shot, bringing the momentum to a halt. With the teams trading dunks and scores inside, the lead stayed within the lower double-digit figures for most of the mid-second half. Garrison scored nine straight points for the Wildcats as Jaxson Robinson nursed a nagging injury. The lead was 50-37 with just over 11 minutes to go.

But Garrison picked up a technical foul for miming a gun firing motion towards Pringle in the immediate aftermath of his made three. That sent Jacobi Wright to the line for two technical free throws, and the senior made both. Murray-Boyles then hit a shot inside, bringing the lead to single digits. But although the Wildcats gave the ball away on their next possession, the Gamecocks did too. Otega Oweh then stopped the Gamecocks’ mini-run with a transition bucket. He followed that with a subsequent slam after a lazy pass from Murray-Boyles on the Wildcats’ side of the court.

At the penultimate media timeout, Kentucky led 55-41 with just under eight minutes to play. Sloppy offense from South Carolina and a couple of and-ones from the Wildcats caused the lead to grow further. Kentucky put together their second run of 10+ points in the second half to blow the game open in the second half. From 10:39 to 5:27, South Carolina did not make a basket.

Otega Oweh and Amari Williams both managed to get the ball in the bucket regularly in the second half for Kentucky. So did Kolby Brea, and four Wildcats ended up in double figures by the end of the game. Giveaways and missed opportunities offensively stymied the Gamecocks offense, while Kentucky scored at will in the second half.

When the final buzzer rang out in Lexington, the margin was in the twenties. A 80-57 win is the largest in the series since 2021, when Kentucky won by 28 points.

Two observations

Without Murray-Boyles on the court, offensive efficiency is a rarity —As mentioned, once Murray-Boyles picked up his second foul, the Gamecocks offense fell apart. Jordan Butler, Zachary Davis, Nick Pringle, Morris Ugusuk, and Jacobi Wright all had shots go up in the final minutes of the half. Only Jamarii Thomas, however, was able to put the ball in the bucket during the stretch where the sophomore forward sat out. In that span, South Carolina was 1-10 from the field and 1-4 from the line.

Bench production virtually disappeared in Lexington—The Gamecocks came into Saturday as an average team in terms of bench scoring. South Carolina was 14th of 16 SEC teams with 19.5 PPG off the bench, still 177th nationally. But they had zero bench points in the first half and finished the day with just four, all from Cam Scott. Five players (Butler, BBV, Ugusuk, Conyers, and Scott) came off the bench, but they combined to shoot 1-11 from the field and 2-4 from the line.

Key stat

9.1 percent—South Carolina shot 1-11, or 9.1%, on threes in the first half. This lack of efficiency from deep led to Kentucky dashing out to a double-digit lead towards the end of the period. Collin Murray-Boyles hit his sixth career three-pointer with over 14 minutes to go in the half. But that was the only make from deep in the first half. The rest of the team was a combined 0-9 from three in the first period.

In the second half, the team started 2-4 from deep, with Wright and Thomas hitting a triple each. But from there, the team shot just 1-7 the rest of the way. It marked the first time South Carolina didn’t have a player with 2+ 3PM since the loss to Mississippi State. The Gamecocks finished 4-22 from deep, or 18.2%.

Turning point

At the 5:42 mark in the first half, Collin Murray-Boyles picked up his second foul. At that point in the game, it was a combined defensive struggle with the Wildcats leading 19-16. After that mark, however, the Gamecocks offense fell apart. Jamarii Thomas made a jumper in the key less than a minute later. However, South Carolina would be held without a single shot made in the last 4:55 of the first half.

In that time span, Kentucky finished the half on a 12-1 run, bursting the game open. South Carolina would not close that gap the rest of the way en route to the tenth straight loss for the Gamecocks.

Up next

South Carolina travels back home to face off against No. 25 Ole Miss on Wednesday night. Tip-off is at 7 p.m. on SEC Network.

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