South Carolina holds off Mercer's strong shooting night to get bounce back win

Nothing has come easy for South Carolina so far this season. And that didn’t change in its first game back after losing to Indiana over the weekend.

In a back-and-forth game, the Gamecocks (3-2) pulled away in the late going to pick up an 84-72 win over Mercer on Thursday at Colonial Life Arena.

“Happy to get to win, that’s for sure,” head coach Lamont Paris said. “I told the guys that when I got into the locker room, that winning is never lost on me, and so you got to find a way to make it happen. … Watching a lot of college basketball games and there’s a lot of teams that think they’re going to win by 20 that end up coming out of there not winning or squeezing one out.”

How it happened

Throughout the first half, things stayed pretty tight between both teams. Mercer was in front for a good portion of the early minutes before the lead went back and forth. The Bears led for nearly 10 minutes while the Gamecocks were in front for 8:46 of the opening 20 minutes.

Part of Mercer having some control in this game came down to the team hitting six first-half three-pointers on 13 shots. As a team, the Bears were shooting 41.9 percent from the floor at the break.

“No matter what the score is, we’re going to keep playing hard,” said Jamarii Thomas, who scored a team-high 19 points. “Just keep pushing and keep hooping. Mercer’s a good team out of the SoCon. We knew they were going to come in and hit some shots. They got some good players. We knew we were going to have to fight for this one.”

South Carolina started to play better down the stretch. Cam Scott drilled a big three to give them a six-point cushion before Mercer responded with a layup not long after to go into halftime with South Carolina leading 36-32.

The lead could’ve been a bit larger had the Gamecocks not played somewhat sloppy. They turned the ball over six times with a lot of their turnovers coming on loose balls from layups. They also shot 5-of-14 from three-point range and went 5-for-9 at the free throw line. This all came while Mercer didn’t attempt a single free throw shot in the first half.

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South Carolina came out firing from deep to open the second half as it knocked down four straight triples, one of which came from Collin Murray-Boyles, who hadn’t made a three-pointer in his college career until he drilled two on Thursday. The sophomore forward had a solid night and scored 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting without any fouls.

“When we feed into the post, they were digging in a little extra,” said Zachary Davis, who finished with 18 points. “So the kick out threes were wide open. Just moving the ball, getting to the paint, playing on two feet. We had corner threes and made direction passes and stuff like that.”

Even with a better start from the Gamecocks, Mercer kept coming back and wouldn’t go away. Instead of being able to start pulling away, the Bears made sure that wouldn’t happen just yet by hitting five of their first seven shots (71.4 percent) with a pair of threes.

With just under 11 minutes to go, Mercer retook the lead for the first time since the 7:43 mark of the first half. By this point, every shot the team took seemed to find the net. They were 10-of-13 from the field and 6-of-7 from three to start the second half. Whether it was the Bears being incapable of missing or South Carolina’s defense not playing well, the shots kept going in.

The Gamecocks jumped back in front and were up by as much as eight with under eight minutes to go after Myles Stute hit his first three of the game. But as per usual in this matchup, Mercer wasn’t going away quietly and kept chipping away to stay within striking distance.

But the defense looked much better down the stretch, as the Bears were held without a field goal for more than five minutes. This allowed for South Carolina to build a double-digit point lead, good enough to hold on for the win.

“Late in the game, we changed some stuff,” Paris said. “Maybe in the three-minute range, somewhere around there, we started switching the ball screens, just because at that point, I think our lead was 10 or 12. I felt like threes was certainly the way that they could cut the lead down in that amount of time.”

Two observations

Was it the defense or just a really good shooting night?—Maybe it’s a combination of both. But for whatever reason, Mercer couldn’t seem to miss, especially in the second half. It’s not like the Bears had been a great shooting team before Thursday night, but they were able to seemingly able to respond any time South Carolina hit a shot. But when push came to shove, the Gamecocks did hold Mercer without a field goal for more than five minutes at one point in the latter portion of the second half to build a better lead.

Great second half showing—Let’s give South Carolina a lot of credit. This offense came out pulling up from just about anywhere on the floor after halftime and was shooting at a high clip. Even when Mercer was going shot for shot, the Gamecocks kept hitting their shots and then got some help on the defensive end of the floor to build a more comfortable lead in the final minutes. They shot 53.8 percent in the second half.

Key stat

7-of-13—The Gamecocks weren’t afraid to let it rip from deep in the second half and knocked down five of their first six three-pointers. They’d finish 7-of-13 from behind the arc after halftime, which ended up being a solid showing.

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Turning point

With a little over five minutes to go in the game, Morris Ugusuk made a great defensive play on a driving layup to get a steal. He’d get fouled soon after and go to the free throw line, where he’d make both of his shots to put the Gamecocks up by nine. This sequence of events seemed to fire up the small crowd in attendance and build some energy.

Up next

South Carolina will head to the Sunshine State to begin play in the Fort Myers Tip-Off next Monday. The Gamecocks will take on Sean Miller’s Xavier Musketeers at 8:30 p.m. on FS1.

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