LEXINGTON, K.Y.—Just under 90 seconds into the second half Saturday, South Carolina looked up and was down just eight points on the road to Kentucky.

Then, just three minutes of game time later, the Gamecocks blinked and were down 19 points and worked themselves into a hole they couldn’t dig out of.

The Gamecocks couldn’t recover from a 17-6 run Saturday in Rupp arena, dropping their regular season finale 92-64, the fifth game this season they've lost by at least 20 points.

“Obviously the second half was embarrassing. The resolve and lack of fight was disappointing” Frank Martin said. “When we were not able to score, we lost our fight defensively. If you don’t have fight when you play teams in the SEC they’re going to score at will.”

Kentucky went up 19 and saw its lead swell to as many as 33 points over the second half as the Gamecocks suffered yet another blowout loss in what's been a frustrating year.

South Carolina (6-14, 4-12 SEC) hung tough against Kentucky through the first 20 minutes, trailing by eight at half. They lead once in the first half while shooting 41.4 percent from the field, but was never able to really hold the lead or go on a big run to overtake the Wildcats.

They scored four points the final eight minutes of the first half, going on two separate scoring droughts of over two minutes, which kept them at arm's length early.

“It started about five minutes to go in the first half where we stopped scoring and couldn’t make a basket," Martin said. "We started leaking and eventually the dam burst and couldn’t stop them and couldn’t score. That’s a bad combination.”

The real issue came defensively with South Carolina allowing Kentucky to shoot 48.1 percent from the three-point line, allowing BJ Boston and Davion Mintz to combine for 41 points on the day.

Mintz was the catalyst for Kentucky’s second-half run to create separation out of the break. He’d make his first five three pointers to start the half, finishing with 20 points on 7-for-13 shooting, six of those three-pointers.

“We did pretty good in the first half defensively but in the second half they just got hot with the three ball and it got out of hand," Jalyn McCreary said. "I feel like that was a problem. We didn’t close out on the three balls like we did in the second half.”

Without Jermaine Couisnard, who missed Saturday’s finale with a rib injury, the Gamecocks mustered 64 points, 36 in the second half.

After starting the game shooting 53.8 percent from the field the Gamecocks finished shooting 38.2 percent from the field and made 14 of their 39 second half buckets.

"We’re going to play fast, which we do, and you have to score. You can’t go through stretches in games where we never make a shot," Martin said. "I wish I could give you a better answer than that. the bottom line is we struggle to score. We were scoring in the first half and in a good place upbeat and guarding. Then we started missing and missing and completely lost our fight. You lose that resolve and that fight and you have no chance.”

Jalyn McCreary did put together a career day, finishing with the most points of his career (14) but the Gamecocks didn’t do much around him.

McCreary and Keyshawn Bryant combined for 30 points on 12-for-21 shooting but no other Gamecock scored more than eight points.

The leading scorer this season, AJ Lawson, finished with six points on just 2-for-10 shooting. The Gamecocks guards—Lawson, TJ Moss, Trae Hannibal and Seventh Woods—combined for 11 points on 3-for-31 shooting.

They'd also combine for 12 turnovers.

“Turnovers are the problem because those are bad decisions. Sometimes we made the right play and guys didn’t catch the ball. We had two out of bounds plays in the first half where we got dunks. One time Keyshawn don’t catch the ball and the other we throw it over the lights. We had another play in the first half where TJ makes a great read and drops it for Tre-Vaughn, who makes no effort to go get the ball so they steal it," Martin said.

"We missed shots right there. You can’t go 3-for-31 and win. You just can’t do it.”

South Carolina could still secure the No. 11 seed in the SEC Tournament but needs both Texas A&M and Vanderbilt to lose Saturday night in order to do so.

Texas A&M travels to Arkansas while Vanderbilt is on the road at Ole Miss. Regardless, they'll play either Wednesday or Thursday night in Nashville, which means a few days off.