South Carolina Basketball vs. LSU Tigers
Thumbs Up 1: Post Players
One of the few positives from Saturday's loss was the Gamecock post players.
Starting bigs BJ Mack and Collin Murray-Boyles combined for 31 points and 16 rebounds on 14-27 shooting. CMB added 3 steals and Mack chipped in 3 assists. Off the bench, Josh Gray was pretty good in 10 minutes, pulling down 3 rebounds, blocking a shot, and scoring 4 points. Even Stephen Clark played, grabbing 3 boards in just 9 minutes.
For the game, Carolina lost the rebounding battle, but much of that was the fault of the guards (more to come on that later).
South Carolina Basketball vs. LSU Tigers
Thumbs Up 2: Zach Davis Back on Track
Zach Davis has been starting ever since Myles Stute first went out after an injury against Georgia. His offensive numbers, though, have not take a step forward with the increased role.
On Saturday, though, Davis had one of his best offensive games as a starter. He did not miss a shot as he went 3-3 from the field (including a 3-point jumper), and he contributed 2 assists to the offensive effort.
As he normally does, Davis played good defense against LSU, a welcome bounce-back after a team-wide tough night on defense against Auburn earlier in the week.
South Carolina Basketball vs. LSU Tigers
Thumbs Up 3: Leading while Playing Badly
There weren't very many "thumbs up"-worthy aspects of this one. One "good" thing, though, was that the Gamecocks led most of the game (33:58 of 40 minutes) despite not playing particularly well. Frankly, though, this "thumbs up" is another "thumbs down" as Carolina choked the game away down the stretch.
USC rode some timely shot-making in the middle of the game to a nice lead and held onto it for a while, but they just weren't good enough on Saturday to win. Sure, the officiating wasn't good, but Lamont Paris' team wasn't a deserving winner anyway.