South Carolina Basketball: What are the Gamecocks’ chances of winning the SEC?

South Carolina basketball should be an improved team in the 2023-2024 season. After tying a program record for losses last year (21 defeats), head coach Lamont Paris and his staff attacked the transfer portal, bringing in one of the most underrated portal classes in the country. They also secured the commitment of potential Freshman All-SEC forward Collin Murray-Boyles.

However, the unfortunate reality for Gamecock fans is that the rest of the SEC got better, as well.

The top-4 in the conference standings from last year (Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas A&M, and Alabama) are expected to remain elite, and the injury-plagued Arkansas Razorbacks of 2022 might be the best team in the league in 2023.

The sizable middle class (with the exception, maybe, of Vanderbilt) improved, and the lower-finishing teams from last season (Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss) all added talent to their rosters and returned some key contributors from a season ago.

What does this mean for South Carolina basketball? It’s too early to tell just yet, but even an improved Gamecock squad will struggle to climb much in the SEC standings this year.

With the Southeastern Conference becoming a bit of a juggernaut this offseason, the betting odds for the league’s champion are not kind to the Gamecocks.

According to FanDuel, the Gamecocks are +21000 to win the SEC regular season crown. That is last by a wide margin. The next closest odds at the bottom of the league belong to Vanderbilt at +10000. DraftKings has the odds even lower for USC at +25000 (Vandy is next again at +10000).

South Carolina basketball fans should not look at those odds as a death sentence for their favorite team’s chances of competing this season. In fact, fans should believe that the Gamecocks will improve and that they will finish better than last place in the conference (where they were projected by the SEC media).

However, the difficulty of life in the SEC is starting to become a reality during basketball season just like it is during the football and baseball seasons. It might be hard to see at times, but improvement is on the horizon.

How much that improvement impacts the win-loss column remains to be seen, but the more wins the 2023-2024 Gamecocks can pick up this season, the more likely it is that the improvement will continue into next season and beyond.