South Carolina now tied for SEC lead

By way of South Carolina men’s basketball’s 68-65 victory over Ole Miss on Tuesday night and Auburn’s 99-81 win over Alabama on Wednesday, the Gamecocks now find themselves in a three-way tie atop the SEC standings.

South Carolina (20-3), Alabama, and Auburn all have 8-2 records in conference play. Regardless of what happens next, not bad for a team that was picked by the SEC media to finish last in the league.

The Gamecocks lost to Alabama in Tuscaloosa earlier this season and are set to travel to Auburn on Tuesday night. In the meantime, they’ll face struggling Vanderbilt at Colonial Life Arena on Saturday afternoon.

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South Carolina, which broke into the Top 25 on Monday for the first time since 2017, has started to become a national darling, with Tuesday’s win the lead story on the CBS Sports Eye on College Basketball podcast with Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander on Wednesday morning.

The topic: can the Gamecocks win the SEC?

“They responded to prosperity well because right now, you said you’ve got them 13th; they are 15th in the AP Top 25 as of Monday’s refresh,” Norlander said. “It’s the highest ranking for the team since the ’97-’98 season when they got as high as No. 5 coming off that strong ’96-’97 campaign there.

“So, I think the defense is what leads me to believe that South Carolina now has a genuine shot to finish atop the SEC. I wouldn’t put them as the most likely team, but I will say this: I brought up their wins above bubble right now nationally, wins above bubble which, as a quick reminder, is how many more wins you’ve gotten versus your schedule versus what the average bubble team. …”

Norlander points out that Bart Torvik’s Wins Above Bubble metric currently has South Carolina tied for fifth in the country in that category.

He also points out that it’s the first time South Carolina has won six straight in SEC play since the 1996-97 season.

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“They’re doing a wonderful job here, and Lamont Paris has a team that isn’t projecting well in terms of efficiency at this point, but I’ve seen enough of South Carolina to this point to know that he’s got something really good cooking here, and they could be headed toward… two or three seed territory if they can dodge any bad losses.

“But I’m telling you,” he added. “Having watched South Carolina now seven or eight times this season, they do find ways to just get the damn job done, and they did it against the Mississippi team that had plenty to prove but couldn’t pull it off there. Congrats to the Gamecocks, 20-3. I will say they fall short of winning the SEC but I think that they will wind up being at… you know, one game out of the top slot and wind up with a two, three, or I guess at worst, four seed in the SEC Tournament.

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Parrish agreed with Norlander that it will be tough for Carolina to actually win the conference but heaped tons of praise on the program, pointing out how they’ve surprised him with the ability to win road games in the SEC.

“As you pointed out, they’re still not great in the predictive metrics outside of the top 40 at KenPom, outside of the top 40 of the NET, but we’ve reached the point of the season where I do pay attention to those numbers, but I am more interested in your resume, in your body of work than I am your computer numbers, and the body of work is like, it’s not Purdue level, it’s not UConn level, but it’s good,” Parrish said.

The Gamecocks host Vanderbilt on Saturday at 1 p.m.

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