South Carolina Basketball: 3 thumbs up, 3 thumbs down in blowout win over GW
By Kevin Miller
South Carolina Basketball vs. George Washington:
Thumbs Down
South Carolina Gamecocks. NO FREE THROWS . Thumbs Down. The Gamecocks and Revolutionaries were allowed to play most of the night. The referees kept their whistles in their pockets at times, but some of that could have been alleviated with a concentrated effort from the Gamecocks to utilize the dribble-drive game more often. The Gamecocks took some aggressive shots, but they did not attack the basket as much as one might expect in an 89-point outburst. As a result, they only took 7 shots from the line. They didn’t need it on Friday as they averaged almost 1.5 points per possession (a ridiculous efficiency stat), but they will need more freebies in tighter games this season..
Thumbs Down. The Gamecocks didn’t have their best day guarding in transition against George Washington. To be fair, defending fast breaks is never easy, and the Revs are an athletic bunch. However, there were multiple instances where Gamecocks were not paying enough attention, allowing a fast break to continue all the way to the basket. Assuming the break is going to stop is never a good way to play against a player bringing the ball down the court quickly, but it appeared to be what happened on multiple possessions. Had GW not blown a couple of those fast break opportunities, the box score would have looked a little uglier than the 16 points they managed to score in transition.. . South Carolina Gamecocks. FAST BREAK DEFENSE
. South Carolina Gamecocks. BIG MEN REBOUNDING . Thumbs Down. The rebounding effort wasn’t great for the Gamecocks on Friday. Stephen Clark was good down low for 5 rebounds and 2 blocks in 8 minutes, but the rest of the Gamecock bigs and wings combined for 11 rebounds in 94 minutes. USC’s rebounders got boxed out way more often than they should have, and it took a really nice 2nd half team rebounding effort to bring the total rebounding margin to a respectable number. That will have to improve moving forward.
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