South Carolina's comeback efforts not enough in overtime loss to Mississippi State

In the aftermath of another tough loss, South Carolina head coach Lamont Paris felt for his players in the struggles they all were going through. The outcome wasn’t what Paris or anyone wanted, but he knows their day is coming.

“When I say that, I don’t mean our day to win. Obviously, it would entail some of that,” Paris said. “But I think our day where we recognize what it is that really prevents us from handling some of these games in a way where we win. When that really happens, when we really acknowledge and figure that out as players, then I really like what our group is.”

Until then, the quest to get over the hump still looms large. The Gamecocks (10-10, 0-7 SEC) dropped their seventh straight game, losing 65-60 to No. 14 Mississippi State in overtime at Colonial Life Arena. Still winless in SEC play, this is now their worst conference start in program history.

How it happened

Much like when these two teams met earlier in the month, South Carolina had little offensive success for much of the first half. The Gamecocks started 1-for-13 from the field and went more than six minutes before getting their next basket.

But because the defense kept the Bulldogs in check, this allowed for the game to remain close. South Carolina forced nine first-half turnovers and held Mississippi State to 44 percent shooting. To go along with that, the lack of scoring was made up for by going 9-for-11 on free throws.

After trailing for the first 13 minutes, South Carolina managed to tie the game thanks to back-to-back layups from Jamarii Thomas. This was the senior point guard’s first action since Jan. 8 after missing four games with a right knee sprain.

“My knee’s still not 100 percent,” said Thomas, who scored 19 points in 33 minutes, “but I’m going to fight through it and keep fighting for my guys cause we gotta get this thing done. We gotta get it done the right way.”

Mississippi State took the lead right back before the Gamecocks got it back down to one with under four minutes to go. However, they were clearly impacted by the Bulldogs bringing the press on defense, as they only shot 20 percent from the floor and 1-of-9 from three. Meanwhile, Mississippi State closed out the first half on a 7-0 run to take a 28-20 lead into the break.

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Down by 14 points with 8:50 left in the second half, South Carolina looked to be on the verge of letting another game get out of hand. It had already happened three times since SEC play began. But at that moment, the Gamecocks switched to their zone defense, something that benefited them greatly last season.

“We had some pretty decent defensive possessions but then it ended up in a late clock or a late spread ball screen. We had changed our ball screen coverage a couple of times to no avail,” Paris said. “And so I just wanted to stop the penetration at some point, so we went to the zone. I thought that was a big part of keying that stretch.”

Once the defense changed things up, it slowly shifted the momentum in the game. Over the final stretch of regulation, the Gamecocks went on a 19-5 run to come all the way back and tie the game after a steal and big-time layup made by Zachary Davis.

“I feel like we were all on the same page,” Collin Murray-Boyles said. “Just to stay in it, stay aggressive, not to hang our heads on being down by such a deficit, and just keep playing our game.”

A big reason for the late push came from how much more effective South Carolina was offensively. While not amazing, it shot 40.7 percent from the field in the second half and went 10-for-12 at the free throw line. The defense continued to be effective, holding Mississippi State to those five points in the back half of the period.

In overtime, South Carolina struggled to get much going, shooting 1-for-6 from the floor. The Bulldogs were 8-for-9 on free throws, which helped keep them ahead going into the final minute.

The fight wasn’t completely over yet, though. Still in a one-possession game, Murray-Boyles went to the line for some all-important free throws but missed them both. After missing the second one intentionally, Nick Pringle corralled the rebound, setting up for an opportunity to try and tie the game in the final seconds. However, his pass went off Arden Conyers’ hands and out of bounds to turn it over for the final time.

“It’s like we’re 95 percent of the way there on that play except we don’t get anything out of it,” Paris said. “We just got to do some of those things better.”

Two observations

Couldn’t generate consistent offense—It took until the latter part of the second half for South Carolina to start playing better offensively. But for most of the day, it was a real struggle. The Gamecocks were 5-for-21 from the field in the first half, good for a low 20 percent shooting. In the second half, they were slightly better, shooting 40.7 percent, which helped lead to a comeback to tie the game. But in overtime, they went 1-for-6 and didn’t make their first basket until there were 1.3 seconds remaining.

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Continuing to come close but it hasn’t been enough—Give South Carolina a lot of credit, the fight has been there throughout this losing streak. The second half effort on Saturday was about as good as it can get. But it couldn’t seem to carry that momentum into overtime.

Key stat

29.3—South Carolina struggled for a good portion of Saturday’s game, shooting 29.3 percent overall as a team. There wasn’t much consistency on offense, which put the Gamecocks in a hole for most of the day before making their late comeback to go to overtime. Shooting less than 30 percent is never going to get it done, even in as close of a game as this one was.

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Turning point

Down by three, the Gamecocks were still alive in the final seconds of overtime. But after Murray-Boyles missed both of his free throws, the Gamecocks were able to grab the rebound to stay alive. But Pringle’s pass after grabbing the rebound went off Conyers’ hands and out of bounds.

Up next

South Carolina will travel to Athens to face Georgia on Tuesday night. Tip-off is at 7 p.m. from Stegman Coliseum on SEC Network.

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