South Carolina basketball: Gamecocks positioned as 11-seed in SEC tournament

The South Carolina basketball team looks to turn things around in the SEC Tournament.

The South Carolina basketball team ended a disappointing 2021 regular season with a 28-point loss to Kentucky on Saturday. That loss dropped the Gamecocks to 6-14 on the year, with a 4-12 mark in conference play.

Those four SEC wins have South Carolina slotted as the tournament’s 11-seed heading into the event, meaning they’ll be slated to play the sixth-seeded Ole Miss Rebels on Thursday night. The 12th placed conference finish is the Gamecocks’ worst since the 2013-14 season. South Carolina only earned the 11-seed in the tournament due to Auburn’s self-imposed postseason ban for 2020-21.

On the year, South Carolina allowed a league-worst 79.3 points per game, buoyed by a 36.9% opponent three-point conversion rate, also the SEC’s worst mark. On the flip side, the Gamecock offense finished eight in scoring, 12th in three-point shooting, and 13th from the free throw line, resulting in the team losing eight of its last nine contests.

Though the season didn’t go as planned, the team will look to start anew in the SEC Tournament, and that first game features a rematch with Ole Miss, who defeated the Gamecocks 81-74 earlier in the year. In that game, Columbia native Devontae Shuler lit the South Carolina defense up with a career-best 31 points. Frank Martin’s bunch will need to shore things up if they want to see a different result this Thursday.

South Carolina has had some SEC Tournament success against the Rebels in recent years, having taken down Ole Miss squads in 2015 and 2018 as an 11-seed in both matchups. They’ll look to extend that postseason winning streak to three games as the Gamecocks attempt to keep their season alive for at least one more outing.