South Carolina basketball fans are happy right now. Both Dawn Staley’s women’s team and Lamont Paris’ men’s squad are undefeated at 7-0 with opportunities to move to 8-0 on Wednesday.
Kamilla Cardoso and her Gamecock squad get Morgan State at home, while Meechie Johnson and the men’s team will travel to the Upstate for the annual rivalry game against the rival (and fellow undefeated) Clemson Tigers.
However, as much as South Carolina basketball fans are happy, they also are angry with the SEC.
The league office currently is catching the ire of the Gamecock Faithful because of a questionable decision regarding weekly awards.
Arkansas forward Trevon Brazile (a very good player) had a nice game against Duke. Brazille had a double-double against the Blue Devils as his Razorbacks beat Jon Scheyer’s team in the ACC/SEC Challenge. For his 19 and 11 effort, he was awarded the SEC Player of the Week honor. It was the Hogs’ only game of the week.
Gamecock fans believe that combo guard Meechie Johnson deserved to be the Player of the Week.
In two blowout wins against Notre Dame (also in the ACC/SEC Challenge) and against George Washington team that was off to its best start in nearly a decade, Johnson scored an average of 26.5 points per game, grabbed 6.5 rebounds per game, snatched a steal per game, and had just one total turnover in the two contests while shooting 58% from the field on 31 shots, 56% from 3 on 16 tries, and 88% from the free throw line on 9 attempts.
The Gamecock star outperformed Brazile as a scorer (26.5 points per game to 19 points) while having similar efficiency numbers. Johnson accomplished this while playing fewer minutes than Brazile, as well, averaging just 31.5 minutes per game compared to Brazile’s 38 minutes. Johnson also passed up a lot of scoring opportunities late in games because his team was leading.
Johnson’s two scoring outbursts were two of his top three career efforts, including his career-high of 29 points.
Johnson and the Gamecocks will look to take out their frustrations on their rivals on Wednesday night. The Palmetto State’s top rivalry will be played at 8:00 on Wednesday on the ACCNetwork and ESPN app.