South Carolina Basketball: SEC Tournament Loss Ends Gamecock Season

South Carolina basketball’s entire season rested on Wednesday night’s contest against the Ole Miss Rebels. Win and move on. Lose and go home. With Aliyah Boston sitting courtside, the Gamecocks hoped to capture some of her team’s winning ways as they kicked off the SEC Tournament in Nashville.

As SEC fans could expect in a 12/13 matchup, ugly basketball ensued. In the third meeting between the Gamecocks and the Rebels this season, the two teams combined for eleven turnovers in the first ten minutes of the game. The lead guards (Meechie Johnson for South Carolina and Matthew Murrell for Mississippi) had five of them.

In the first few minutes, Josh Gray, Hayden Brown, GG Jackson, and Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk were dominant on the glass as the Gamecocks led the Rebels 11-6 in rebounding early. The score favored Carolina at 14-13 after Jackson converted an and-one on the game’s first shooting foul at the midpoint of the half. The offenses both got hot for a short stretch as the game was all of a sudden 21-19 just two minutes later.

The Rebels went on a short run to grab a six-point lead as the Gamecocks continued to give the basketball away, but Lamont Paris’ team responded. Eli Marksman…err…Sparkman made another corner 3 to bring his percentage to 58% from distance over his last five games. The half ended with Ole Miss going 1-9 down the stretch, and the score stood 30-29 in favor of the Rebels. The game was not out of hand even though the Gamecocks struggled at the rim in the first half, going 4-12 on layups.

Coming out of the locker room, Coach Paris drew up a nice play off a ball screen that saw GG Jackson open for a dunk, one of the first times a set play has been executed properly by the Gamecocks all season. What was a slight halftime advantage in rebounding for Ole Miss swelled as the Rebels dominated on the glass in the early goings of the second period. Their rebounding efforts sparked a 9-0 run that ran the score to 39-31.

To break the run, another designed play for a Jackson dunk saw the superstar freshman come flying in down the baseline to flush home the Hayden Brown lob.

Jaemyn Brakefield crushed the momentum created by the dunk when he scored five straight points, the fourth and fifth coming after an obvious double-dribble that was missed by the officiating crew. A catch-and-shoot 3 from Meechie Johnson and a converted and-one from GG Jackson tied the score at 44 with 11:04 remaining. The road team won the previous two matchups between these teams, and now, on a neutral site, fans were in for a tight finish.

Carolina’s 1-3-1 zone caused issues for Ole Miss as they could not consistently drive the basketball. A GG Jackson layup off of a nice Meechie Johnson assist gave the Gamecocks the lead. The Rebs answered with a three from Amaree Abram that brought his scoring total into double figures. Leading scorer Matthew Murrell had been held to just two points on 1-8 shooting up to that point, but Abram and Brakefield picked up the slack with 5-11 shooting from deep as they figured out the Gamecock zone.

Lamont Paris tried to go back to the GG Jackson cut play from earlier, but a turnover was the result as Hayden Brown passed the ball before Jackson committed to his cut. Brakefield and Abram added back-to-back buckets to push the lead to eight at 56-48 with just under six minutes to play.

After some back-and-forth basketball, Hayden Brown fed GG Jackson for another slam, but the Gamecocks still trailed 63-56 with 2:31 left in the game. A full-court press led to a near-turnover and then an actual turnover, but the Gamecocks couldn’t convert on offense. A minute ticked away before Jackson’s 20th and 21st points cut the lead to 5.

A phantom foul called on Brown resulted in a 1-2 trip to the line for Brakefield, but the red-hot Jackson answered with a jumper from downtown to make it a one-possession game. The 64-61 Rebel lead grew to five after a Zachary Davis dropped rebound resulted in two points for the Rebels. The six-point margin held to the final buzzer.

The former Duke Blue Devil Brakefield and the freshman Abram were too much offensively for the Gamecocks. The two combined for 36 points on 7-13 from deep, and Myles Burns was a problem all night with 6 steals.

After a good start on the boards, Carolina ended up losing the rebounding battle 41-31. GG Jackson carried the offense with 24 points on efficient shooting from the floor. A clean second half with just two turnovers was not enough to extend South Carolina’s season as Hayden Brown and GG Jackson were captured in a teary-eyed embrace in what was Brown’s (and likely Jackson’s) final game as a Gamecock.

This offseason will be crucial for deciding the direction of the Lamont Paris-era in Columbia.