South Carolina's upset bid over Alabama falls short in overtime

Brandon Miller sliced through South Carolina’s defense and laid the ball in while GG Jackson, seconds later heaved a halfcourt shot to the rim that fell short and sent the game into overtime.

South Carolina, on the cusp of beating No. 2 Alabama, would have to do it overtime. But the Tide’s wave of talent was too much and the Gamecocks’ incredibly tough push of one of the best teams in the country ultimately fell short.

With less than two seconds left, it was Miller again laying the ball in and handing South Carolina an incredibly hard-fought 78-76 loss with Lamont Paris saying he had a “knot in my stomach” heading into the locker room postgame.

“You did enough good things to win the basketball game, I do know that,” Paris said. “I was proud. I’m really proud. I’m proud of what they did, how they communicated with each other. The stuff being said in the huddles and timeouts is a significant improvement than what it was in December and January.” 

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How it happened

South Carolina (10-18, 3-12 SEC) and Alabama were nip and tuck most of the game, the Gamecocks using a 16-3 run to take a lead and trading blows for most of the game.

After two huge Meechie Johnson threes followed by a go-ahead three from Zach Davis to put South Carolina up, Alabama tied things up.

Things came down to the wire with Jacobi Wright, in a tie game, drilled a pull-up jumper to give South Carolina the lead. But it was short-lived.

Brandon Miller blew past the Gamecocks’ defense with just 14.3 seconds left to tie the game up and GG Jackson’s half-court heave was off the mark to send things to overtime.

South Carolina got there thanks to the big shot from Wright but 19 points from Jackson, 13 coming in the first half, and 10 strong from Johnson after halftime, propelled by a halfcourt shot of his own to end the first half.

Wright finished with 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting with four of those points coming in overtime.

“It felt good to be in a game like this with a chance to win it,” he said. “As a basketball player you want to be in those types of situations. We have some guys who can get going in times like that when we need it.” 

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It was a rollercoaster in overtime with one lead change and three ties, including a Wright game-tying bucket with 1:03 left and another from Johnson with 21 seconds left.

But, at the end of the day, it was Miller and his career-high 41 points slicing to the rim to end South Carolina’s hopes of an upset.

“He finished with his left hand late two times to win the game. He’s a hard guy to guard. I don’t get as much into that as writers do. We could have won that game. Say it was 39 he scored instead of 41. We win the game and it’s a different deal. Someone else could have scored a lot of points. He’s really good,” Paris said.

“It makes sense to talk about the fact he had a bunch of points. He had a bunch of points in a game where he scored less, even in overtime, less than what they were averaging. I’m not as interested that he scored more or scored a litte less. Us as a unit, I think we did a good job defensively against him.

South Carolina didn’t have Hayden Brown in overtime after he fouled out with 35 seconds to play.

“Hayden’s fouling out was a big hit for us. You have some flexibility offensively, particularly late in the game you can go small with (Charles) Bediako out there. It makes us make some decisions,” Paris said.

“But it certainly makes them decisions on what they’ll give up late in the game. It was hard not having Hayden out there in those situations. Whether he shoots it or not, it’s a different level of attention.” 

Johnson’s heave at the buzzer bounced off the rim and the backboard to give Alabama the win.

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Two observations

Too many transition opportunities–Alabama is one of the fastest teams in the country in terms of pace, a team that likes to get out in transition and run. The Gamecocks at times played right into that, committing a few turnovers that led to easy Tide buckets. Alabama finished with 21 fastbreak points and South Carolina had just five offensive rebounds. 

Perimeter defense was hit or miss–Alabama only hit 26 percent of its threes, well below its league-best 37.5 percent. That’s a positive, but the Gamecocks allowed far too many looks late at the rim. Fatigue played a part but it was tough to defend when Alabama was getting efficient looks close.

“We made some mistakes also. They needed a basket on two occasions and they got a layup out of it,” Paris said. “Their quality shot in the waning moments was probably higher than it should have been.

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Key stat

40 points: South Carolina couldn’t stop Alabama from getting to the rim, allowing 40 points in the paint. The Tide’s game-tying and game-winning buckets came at the rim and most of Alabama’s points came inside in overtime.

Turning point

Brandon Miller laid the ball in with fractions of a second left. Josh Gray and Hayden Brown were each the bench. Brown had previously fouled out before overtime and Gray looked as if he was nursing a leg injury on the bench.

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Up next

South Carolina hits the road for a quick one-game road trip, traveling to Tennessee Saturday afternoon. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m. on the SEC Network. 

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