COLUMBIA, S.C. — Lamont Paris and the South Carolina men’s basketball team have a long way to climb.
Hosting No. 8 Tennessee (13-2, 3-0 SEC) on Saturday — one of two top-10 teams in the SEC — the rag-tag Gamecocks showed just how much of a disparity there is between them and the upper-echelon teams in the conference.
Paris’ team fell to the Volunteers, 85-42 — a historic deficit. The 43-point loss is the Gamecocks’ worst loss in a decade and the worst for the team in SEC play, after losing by 39 points at Florida in 2013. Saturday’s game is the second 30-plus point loss for South Carolina this year, with the Gamecocks losing to Colorado State by 32 points in November.
The Gamecocks (7-8, 0-2 SEC) lost their second-straight game to start SEC play after dropping their conference opener in overtime at Vanderbilt on Tuesday. South Carolina dips below .500 with a trip to Rupp Arena and Kentucky on deck next week. Here’s what we learned from Saturday’s game.
Tennessee defense stifling
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes is known for his defensive prowess, and this year’s team is no different. The Vols came into Saturday’s matchup ranking first on KenPom.com in adjusted defensive efficiency and 3-point defense, and opponents averaged just 53.2 points per game.
The Gamecocks looked overmatched offensively.
With the Vols attacking aggressively and often double-teaming on the perimeter, the Gamecocks found little room to penetrate and routinely held the ball deep into possessions. Too often settling for deep shots, South Carolina made just one of 13 3-points attempts in the first half in an abysmal shooting effort.
“They are one organism,” USC forward Hayden Brown said. “I know that sounds weird, but they’re always on the same page. Communication is really good. They’re heavy in the gaps. They play hard.”
The Gamecocks shot 25% for the game and made just four of 26 3-point attempts.
Jackson struggles, benched to start second half
For the most part, 18-year-old freshman GG Jackson has lived up to the hype that followed him on the recruiting trail. He came into Saturday’s game as South Carolina's leading scorer and rebounder and the nation’s second-highest freshman scorer.
But Jackson looked out of sorts against the Vols, missing all five field-goal attempts in a frustrating first half for the Gamecocks. Even more, the coaching staff seemed frustrated with Jackson’s body language at times, motioning for him to run up the court with more urgency.
In the second half, Paris and his coaching staff appeared to send a message by sitting Jackson on the bench and starting fellow freshman Zachary Davis in his place.
“He didn’t respond well,” Paris said of Jackson. “His body language was not good, so I’m gonna play the guys that are acting like they want to play really hard and play for you and try to win, and that’s what it was. He didn’t respond well to it, so I went with Zach in the second half.”
The tactic was reminiscent of a halftime pep talk Paris gave Jackson when he went scoreless in the first half at Georgetown in December. Jackson responded with 22 points in the second half against the Hoyas that day.
Jackson didn’t have the same second-half eruption against the Vols. His benching was brief. He checked back in to the game after Brown committed his fourth foul two minutes into the second half. But Jackson ended the game with zero points, shooting 0 for 8 and playing a season-low 22 minutes.
Paris said he thinks some of the pressure Jackson faces as one of the most talked-about players in the country might’ve gotten to him Saturday.
“He’s handled all this stuff so well so far, but he did not handle it well today,” Paris said. “I told him at one point, ‘Sometimes you just need someone to tell you the truth right to your face.’ And I told him, ‘Here’s where you are. Your body language is not good.’”
No depth for Gamecocks
When Jackson isn’t scoring, the Gamecocks don’t pack much of a punch offensively. And that’s especially the case if veterans like Brown, Chico Carter Jr. and Meechie Johnson aren’t producing either.
Of those veterans, Johnson was the only who managed to create any kind of offense, penetrating the lane to score 19 points despite shooting just 1-of-9 shooting from the 3-point line.
But no other Gamecock cracked double digits from a scoring perspective. Carter had a quiet game after putting up 26 points against Vanderbilt, and Brown committed his fourth foul early in the second half, relegating him to the bench.
