South Carolina basketball: Gamecocks locked into 12 seed for SEC tournament
By Jacob Elsey
South Carolina basketball has one last game before the SECT.
It’s been a disappointing season for the South Carolina basketball team, with the Gamecocks battling COVID issues en route to a 6-13 overall record. The team has seen multiple games cancelled, including all but one contest in the month of December, and has had trouble keeping both players and coaches on the court. The instability has been extremely frustrating to those following the program, as many tabbed the Gamecocks to be an NCAA Tournament team in the preseason.
That frustration continued last night in a blowout loss to Arkansas. The Razorbacks erupted in a 101-73 beatdown, resulting in the Gamecocks’ seventh loss in eight games. Five of those losses have been decided by 15 points or more, with the latest 28-point defeat being the season’s worst.
With the loss, the team is now locked into the the opening round game for next week’s SEC Tournament, meaning Frank Martin’s group will play in the opening round versus either Texas A&M or Vanderbilt. It’s the Gamecocks’ worst conference finish since the 2013-14 season.
South Carolina has not fared too well under Frank Martin in the SEC Tournament, no matter the seed. The Gamecocks have been seeded as high as No. 3 and as low as No. 13 for the tournament’s start, and in Martin’s eight previous seasons, his teams have posted a record of just 5-7 in SEC Tournament play.
That number drops to just 1-4 over the past five years, despite the Gamecocks finishing the in the top half of the league standings for four of those five seasons. Last year’s tournament was cancelled prior to the Gamecocks’ matchup with Arkansas due to COVID.
If you’re looking for some good news, Frank Martin’s teams in Columbia are 5-4 as a double digit seed, but still, the Gamecocks haven’t been able to get past the quarterfinals in any of those tournament runs.
It will be a tough task for South Carolina to run off five straight conference wins, but it’s the only option the Gamecocks have if they want to play in the postseason, as a loss all but ends the year.