After weeks of progress, the South Carolina basketball team suffered a blowout loss to the Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville. The 85-45 defeat was the second-largest loss in series history behind only the first encounter between the two squads this season.
The team hopes to bounce back on the road against Mississippi State. The game will be broadcast on SECNetwork and the ESPN App at 9:00 EST on Tuesday.
The surging Bulldogs have won 7 of their last 9 games, including 4 of 5 at home. The Gamecocks’ other storyline (drama between Head Coach Lamont Paris and star freshman GG Jackson) seems to be in the past, as Jackson has returned to the starting lineup and played his usual allotment of minutes, and there have been no non-basketball issues noticeable over the last several games.
Mississippi State’s Tolu Smith is the conference’s second-leading rebounder behind only last year’s Conference Player of the Year, Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe. The Bulldogs are a good rebounding team overall, but they are a top-25 offensive rebounding team in college basketball. If the Gamecocks are to have a chance to pull off the upset on Tuesday, Josh Gray, GG Jackson, and Hayden Brown are going to have to play well on the glass. Based on recent performances, Gray will play his part. In fact, during the last matchup between these two teams, Gray outrebounded Smith by six boards despite playing fewer minutes.
The key to beating Mississippi State is keeping them out of the paint. Smith and fellow starters DJ Jeffries and Shakeel Moore average 33.2 points per game combined (more than half of their total scoring), and none of them are threats behind the arc. The Bulldogs, as a team, are last in the conference in distance shooting, so forcing them to take jump shots is the recipe for success Lamont Paris should be looking to bake up in the Hump on Tuesday night.
The Gamecocks have been without guards Chico Carter and Ford Cooper the last several games, and Carter’s absence in particular has been felt. While not a high-volume shooter, the Columbia native is one of the best shooters in the conference. Without his shot-making and offensive gravity, opposing defenses have been able to key on GG Jackson and Meechie Johnson, making life more difficult for Carolina’s best scorers. Jacobi Wright and Hayden Brown have scored better of late, however, the Gamecocks will need all four of their offensive threats to toss the pumpkin through the ring to win. Keeping the Bulldogs off the free throw line will be imperative, as well, as they have taken almost 120 more shots from the charity stripe than the Gamecocks this year.
Prediction
Game 2 of 2 on the season between the Bulldogs and the Gamecocks will go almost exactly like the first. South Carolina will keep it close early on as they rebound well and wall off the paint with Josh Gray. However, as the game wears on, fatigue and/or foul trouble will limit Gray, and the Bulldogs will take every opportunity they can to score in the paint when he is not down low. GG Jackson and Meechie Johnson score but not efficiently as the country’s sixth-ranked scoring defense forces the South Carolina basketball team to take bad shots. The second half sees the home team pull away for a somewhat comfortable win.