What we learned from South Carolina’s hot-shooting loss to No. 1 Tennessee
All four of South Carolina’s SEC losses this season have come to the three teams directly above the Gamecocks in the league standings.
The latest — an 85-73 downer to No. 1 Tennessee on Wednesday — offered some pleasant surprises as well as frustratingly old scenes.
Here’s what we learned from the result that dropped USC (7-4) into a fourth-place tie in the SEC with Ole Miss:
Two games, a 40-point difference between Bryant and Schofield
Admiral Schofield, Tennessee’s beast of a 6-foot-6, 241-pound small forward, is a matchup problem to most teams in the country. After Wednesday, Keyshawn Bryant knows there’s a chance he never has to see the Vols star senior on a court again.
Schofield totaled 45 points and 19 rebounds against the Gamecocks this season — to Bryant’s five and three.
“We did a really bad job helping Keyshawn with Schofield because obviously he’s pretty young and Schofield’s pretty big,” said Carolina senior forward Chris Silva. “That was a mismatch we did a pretty bad job with.”
But here’s how Frank Martin spun the domination to the freshman Bryant: Picture yourself two, three years from now.
Schofield, when tasked with Michael Carrera and Sindarius Thornwell as a freshman in 2015-16, was held to 14 points over two games against USC.
“(Schofield) obviously didn’t go home, cry and pout,” Martin said. “He worked and worked and now he’s throwing people around. So I told Keyshawn, ‘It is what it is. You gotta take this one in, understand he went through what you’re going through. You gotta work to get better.’ It’s plain and simple.”
Time to take the Gamecocks seriously from beyond the arc
These aren’t fluke performances anymore. USC just went on the road against the nation’s No. 1 team and hit 61 percent of its 3-point attempts. South Carolina has made at least 10 3s in three of its last four games, including a season-best 14 Wednesday.
Take away that 0-for-18 stinker in the Nov. 6 opener with USC Upstate and the Gamecocks are shooting 36.3 percent from beyond the arc this season. They’re at 40.4 percent in SEC play — that’s tops in the league.
“Everybody said, ‘Oh my God, they’re an awful shooting team,’ ” Martin said, referencing reaction to the Upstate performance. “I told you it would be all right. I’m not worried about our shooting.”
USC still a ‘one-man rebounding team’
One game wasn’t going to change a season-long narrative, but perhaps Wednesday showed just how wide the gap is between Silva and the rest of the Gamecocks on the glass.
Silva had half of USC’s 30 rebounds against the Volunteers.
“We’re a one-man rebounding team,” Martin said. “I can’t get (Maik) Kotsar, Keyshawn, Felipe (Haase), I can’t get them to help Chris on the glass.”
Surely players have opportunity to improve, but USC would be wise to scout the graduate transfer market for rebound specialists this offseason.
Silva stamps his case for All-SEC
In two games against the SEC’s best team, Silva has 45 points, 25 rebounds and four blocks.
The Gamecocks, after Evan Hinson’s departure, are down to an eight-man rotation. Silva responded Wednesday by logging a career-best 39 minutes.
Silva made first-team All-SEC last season and was a preseason pick to do it it again, but below-average play in November and December dampened the chances. He’s done his best to make up for it in the proceeding months. Double-doubles against Tennessee never hurt.
This story was originally published February 14, 2019 at 9:40 AM.
