South Carolina MBB builds 28-point lead over LSU, holds on for SEC road win

South Carolina men’s basketball traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana in desperate need of a morale boost.

Entering SEC play, the Gamecocks had stumbled through their non-conference slate, dropping all four games against high-major opponents. Then, USC started its conference schedule with an 84-71 loss at home.

USC needed to win in order to quell frustrations and questions of the Gamecocks’ ability to stay afloat in the SEC this season.

The Gamecocks (10-5, 1-1 SEC) put on as nearly convincing a performance as they could in the first half against LSU (12-3, 0-2) and survived the second, taking down the Tigers 78-68 on Tuesday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

“Great win for this team, this program,” USC guard Meechie Johnson told the Gamecock Sports Network in a radio interview after the game. “We needed a high-major win. It’s hard to win on the road like this. We needed this one.”

Here are three key takeaways from the win:

Hot start, cold finish

USC touted itself as a 3-point shooting team headed into the season, but things haven’t always gone as planned. The Gamecocks, in their five losses this season, went 0 for 41 from long range combined in each half before making their first 3-pointer. Even on more efficient nights, it seemed like USC hadn’t reached its shooting potential in a game this season.

In the first half against LSU, USC put together its most efficient and highest-scoring half of the season (50 points) and looked like everything it had hoped to be this year and more.

The Gamecocks made nine-consecutive shots before their first miss in the first half. A 2-for-10 stretch late in the half brought USC’s shooting percentage down to a more realistic 51.6%, but the 3-pointers never slowed down. USC finished 10 for 13 from beyond the arc in the first half.

South Carolina led by as many as 28 points in the first half and was up 25 on LSU at the half.

USC slowed to a near halt in the second half, shooting 40.9% from the floor and 25% on 3-pointers, but the game’s hot start was enough to make LSU’s late efforts all for naught.

“I told them they were gonna have one run — unfortunately they had three runs,” Gamecocks coach Lamont Paris said in his postgame radio interview. “There were a lot of plays we had to make in order to win, and to the guys’ credit, they made those plays.”

Interior shutdown

Even more surprising than USC’s offensive outburst Tuesday was its play on the defensive end, particularly in the paint. LSU forward Mike Nwoko stands 6-foot-10 and averages a team-high 16.4 points per game, making him a prime candidate to dominate the undersized Gamecocks inside. Instead, USC shut him down.

Nwoko went 1 for 5 with two points in the first half. He did grab seven rebounds, but USC finished the half out-rebounding LSU 19-17 and outsourcing the Tigers 10-6 in the paint.

Even more impressive: USC shut down the paint without using a true big. The Gamecocks were missing 7-footer and usual starting forward Christ Essandoko with an ankle injury. Jordan Butler, the only other player on the team 6-foot-10 or taller, played just four minutes.

“The guys really fought. … We were physical, we had bodies,” Paris told Gamecock Sports Network. “Just all the things that would create a little indecision for a guy like Nwoko.”

Nwoko finished with six points on 2-for-9 shooting, and USC ultimately lost the rebounding (42-30) and paint scoring (28-22) battles.

Strong leads scoring charge

If there’s anyone USC has been able to lean on consistently as a scoring spark plug, even in shooting droughts, it’s forward Elijah Strong.

Strong, a junior transfer from Boston College, averages 10.3 points per game (third-highest on the team), mostly coming off the bench. He’d logged games of 15 points or more five times prior to Tuesday’s game.

With Essandoko out, Strong has been tasked with starting for USC and hasn’t skipped a beat. He dropped 17 points against Vanderbilt and had his best game of the year against LSU, starting 4 for 4 from 3-point range on the way to 14 points in his first six minutes.

Strong finished with a career-high 30 points on 10-for-15 shooting.

USC also got a much-needed aggressive game from starting point guard Meechie Johnson on offense. Johnson leads USC in scoring (13.6 ppg), but failed to eclipse 10 points in three of his last four games. He finished Tuesday’s contest with 19 points and made three 3s.

“I’m just so proud of [Strong’s] work, man,” Johnson said. “He came up really big for us tonight, and we got the win.”

South Carolina men’s basketball schedule: Next four games

• Saturday: vs. Georgia, 2 p.m. (ESPN2)
• Jan. 14: at Arkansas, 9 p.m. (SEC Network)
• Jan. 17: at Auburn, 6 p.m. (SEC Network)
• Jan. 20: vs. Oklahoma, 7 p.m. (SEC Network)

This story was originally published January 6, 2026 at 9:06 PM.