The change South Carolina made in final minutes to get win over Winthrop
From the early minutes of the game, something just felt off. South Carolina kept shooting but shots weren’t going through the net like they had been before.
It was a trend that carried on for most of the night, as the Gamecocks shot 23.1 percent from three-point range. At this point, a change was evident.
“I mean, we had open looks. It’s just going to come down to make open shots,” Ta’Lon Cooper said. “The way we got to get buckets is driving to the paint, getting to the free throw line and getting points that way. Other than that, we just got to make open shots.”
RELATED: South Carolina-Winthrop box score
So with a few minutes left to go, South Carolina decided to start playing harder in the paint. After all, it had 6-foot-8 big man BJ Mack at its disposal down low.
“We feel like BJ has an advantage,” Jacobi Wright said. “We always look for him down there. And we know he’ll kick it out if they put two on him or somebody’s open. So it definitely opens up the offense for some shooters to knock down shots.”
As a result, it was a move that worked out well. With Mack’s ability to get to the rim, he drew some defenders to him, which created openings on the outside.
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With just over two minutes to go, Mack was in this exact type of situation. Heavily guarded down low, needing to get the ball away to someone else. He found Cooper wide-open at the top of the key. It was the perfect opportunity.
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Cooper caught the open pass, took his shot from deep. Splash. There it was. It was only South Carolina’s sixth made three-pointer of the night. But it was the most important one to put it ahead by nine points.
“Playing in 100-plus games, I’m pretty sure at some point you don’t really think about it,” Cooper said. “Just something you do. It’s second nature. So just playing my game and just do whatever it takes to help my team win.”
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From there, it would be too much of a deficit for Winthrop to battle back from. The Gamecocks, after not playing their best game, managed to pull off a 72-62 win on Tuesday.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. I don’t think our guys panic. And that allows you to settle things back down, regardless of what the crowd does or you give up a double-digit lead that gets cut to a five-point lead,” head coach Lamont Paris said.
“When you have some poise, it allows you to still play and be concerned most with what the next thing you have to do is. When you don’t have poise, you have to do the next thing, but all you’re doing is really thinking about the last thing. It’s the only thing you’re thinking about and that can paralyze you in terms of being a player and having to make some plays. Our guys are older and experienced, I think that’s helped. But they’ve had good poise when things haven’t gone our way.”
