Three-point shooting much more effective for South Carolina in win over Arkansas
With South Carolina, it’s no secret that it takes a lot of three-point shots. It can be both a good and bad thing at times.
If shots are falling, the Gamecocks are hard to beat. But if not, they have to resort to other ways of scoring, which can be difficult. In a way, they live and die by the three.
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After an ugly shooting performance on Tuesday, South Carolina bounced back in a big way, especially from the outside, in a 77-64 win over Arkansas.
“I’ve said it all season, we’ve probably generated the highest quality of looks of any team I’ve ever been a part of from the three-point line this season if I really had to look at,” head coach Lamont Paris said. “Which is amazing to me that we haven’t shot the ball better, honestly. But today, we did. I thought the looks were great. Some guys jumped up and knocked them in.”
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In the loss to Georgia earlier in the week, the Gamecocks went 6-for-26 from outside. It was a struggle to get anything going. They just looked off from the start of that game.
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But on Saturday, they were able to find some open looks and take good shots. As a group, they went 9-for-18 (50 percent) from behind the arc. That played a big role in winning by double digits.
A lot of players had better shooting performances with the three-point shots being spread across the floor. Ta’Lon Cooper went a perfect 3-for-3 and scored 11 points, while Meechie Johnson only had eight points but did hit two threes.
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However, the biggest performance came from BJ Mack, who desperately needed to find a rhythm. After going 1-for-6 on Tuesday, he finished with a team-high 18 points and knocked down three shots from outside.
“Man, the spacing on the floor takes care of itself if he’s going to make threes,” Paris said. “You’ve just got to make some decisions in the ball-screen and then what you’re going to do. And then you see he’s also with a smaller guy or even bigger guy, do some work around the basket. He’s proficient. It really energizes our team early in the game if he makes a couple of threes. I think it really gets us going.”
