Late surge helps South Carolina hold off Mississippi State for big SEC win
It was always going to be a battle.
Even when South Carolina’s basketball team raced out to an 18-point lead in the early going Tuesday night against Mississippi State, looking like the best version of itself, it just wasn’t going to be a night that was that easy.
The lead was down to two points by halftime, and it wasn’t over until the Gamecocks finally pushed it to 12 with two minutes left, punctuated by an alley-oop dunk from Maik Kotsar on his senior night. The 83-71 win prevented what could have been a fourth loss in five games for USC (18-12, 10-7 SEC) and kept its faint NCAA tournament hopes going for another few days.
Afterward, Kotsar joked they hadn’t gone for that alley-oop before in games.
“In practice, we’ve had a few,” Kotsar said.
Guard A.J. Lawson immediately followed by referring to his senior teammate with one word and a smile: “Athletic.”
Kotsar showed few signs of pressing despite having family in town from Estonia. He put up double-digit points before halftime and battled to win a few key loose balls from Mississippi State (19-11, 10-7) early in the half. He wasn’t the most efficient (9 of 22 shooting) but finished with 20 points.
The senior thanked the fans afterwards and seemed to be soaking in the moment.
“It meant a lot to play the last game at CLA, to get the win, just to play at home with the guys one last time,” Kotsar said.
He wasn’t helped by two of the team’s top point guard options, Jermaine Couisnard and Trae Hannibal, who were saddled with foul trouble early. Couisnard only scored eight, but he was a floor general, handing out 10 assists.
Fouls and free throws had been a large-scale road problem for South Carolina, and they became a home problem as well. The Bulldogs marched to the line 18 times in the first 20 minutes, collecting half their points there as they shot 88.9 percent.
After falling behind by six points in the first five minutes, USC put on one of its most dominant stretches of the conference season, a run that put the game away not long after it started.
That run, which included 20 consecutive points and topped out at 25-3, was a sublime example of what the Gamecocks could be: scrapping for turnovers, racing out into transition, dropping pretty passes for dunks and watching Jair Bolden deposit jumpers into the hoop as softly as a bird’s egg being placed in a nest.
USC had a few breaks, like when a 75.8% free throw shooter missed the front end of a 1-and-1. And at times things just went their way. In one instance, guard Cousinard threw up an ill-fated floater, and there was Kotsar to snatch the ball out of the air and get shoved to get to the line. He hit both shots.
But Mississippi State had enough surge to keep things interesting into the late going, coming as close as five points with 3:21 to go. Tyson Carter led the Bulldogs with 24 points.
“We did a great job fighting our way back to only be down two the half,” Bulldogs coach Ben Howland said. “But to use all that energy and expend all that energy to be down so big and have to come back from that, I think was really tough on us.”
The win clinched a fourth winning SEC season for USC in five years. South Carolina moved into a tie for fifth place in the conference with the Bulldogs, and the Gamecocks’ final opponent is a Vanderbilt squad it will be favored against. (The Commodores entered the night with one win in 16 SEC games.)
The Gamecocks will have a hard time climbing into a double-bye spot, as they don’t hold tiebreakers against the teams in second through fourth place entering the night. The clearest route would be winning out and hoping the fourth-place Gators lose both at Georgia and to Kentucky at home, allowing USC to jump them completely in SEC standings.
“I told you guys last year, I’d like to coach on Saturday one time at this conference tournament,” Martin said. “We’ve played on Wednesdays we played on Thursdays and we’ve lost on Fridays.”
Next
What: South Carolina at Vanderbilt
When: 12:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Vanderbilt Memorial Gymnasium
TV: SEC Network
Radio: 107.5 The Game in Columbia area
Box score
MISSISSIPPI ST. (19-11): Ado 2-3 1-2 5, Perry 5-12 6-7 17, Stewart 1-7 0-0 2, Weatherspoon 3-12 3-3 9, Woodard 4-11 3-4 11, Carter 7-10 6-7 24, Molinar 0-1 3-4 3, Feazell 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 22-56 22-27 71.
SOUTH CAROLINA (18-12): Bryant 5-8 2-2 12, Kotsar 9-22 2-2 20, Henry 0-0 0-0 0, Couisnard 3-8 1-2 8, Lawson 3-7 4-5 12, Bolden 3-4 0-0 8, Frink 3-4 2-3 8, Hannibal 2-3 2-2 6, Leveque 2-4 0-0 4, McCreary 2-5 1-3 5, Moss 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 32-66 14-19 83.
Halftime—South Carolina 40-38. 3-Point Goals—Mississippi St. 5-14 (Carter 4-5, Perry 1-1, Stewart 0-2, Weatherspoon 0-2, Woodard 0-4), South Carolina 5-11 (Bolden 2-3, Lawson 2-5, Couisnard 1-3). Rebounds—Mississippi St. 33 (Perry 16), South Carolina 30 (Bryant 7). Assists—Mississippi St. 11 (Stewart 3), South Carolina 20 (Couisnard 10). Total Fouls—Mississippi St. 22, South Carolina 23.
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 8:33 PM.
