After Tuesday’s season opener where the Gamecocks struggled shooting from the field, Frank Martin said he wasn’t worried about South Carolina’s ability to shoot the ball.

Then, South Carolina escaped that game with a double-digit win but weren’t as lucky Friday, dropping a game to Princeton in Asheville 66-62 where the Gamecocks (1-1) struggled from the field and subsequently offensively in another early-season loss.

“You know they’re coming and we couldn’t make a jump shot,” Frank Martin said. “Without a presence at the rim from our bigs, other than Wildens Leveque and not being able to make a jump shot and not getting to the foul line it’s a bad recipe to win a game against a team like Princeton.

The Gamecocks shot just 36.2 percent from the field and went 4-for-26 from three.

It’s the 12th time since Martin took over South Carolina has shot 16 percent or worse from three on at least 10 attempts. They’d start 1-for-20 from beyond the arc and finish with a flurry of threes in the final minute of the game.

For the first eight minutes of the game to start, it looked like the Gamecocks’ shooting issues plaguing them in the opener were gone.

But those came up as offensively South Carolina scored six points the final 11:38 of the first half and Princeton ended the half on a 21-6 run to take a five-point lead into the break.

“I feel like we weren’t disciplined enough on defense. When we made subs and started making bad decisions,” Couisnard said. “They just started making us pay.”

A fast start for South Carolina withered away with poor shooting form the field in the first half and needed a spark to get them back in the game, and did so using a 10-run to take a lead about five minutes into the first half.

But time South Carolina would throw a punch, Princeton would counter with a shot to the jaw, typically from beyond the arc.

“On a day where we got nothing from our bigs other than Wildens and we shot 4-for-28 from the three, you have to find other ways to win the game,” Martin said. “That means you have to be very, very good defensively and we made mistakes. Every time we were a step late on a rotation they stuck the three. Credit them. It’s not like we didn’t play hard.”

The pivotal stretch came with eight minutes to go and the Gamecocks up two after a James Reese jumper. Princeton responded with threes on back-to-back possessions, pushing its lead to seven and never trailing again

The Tigers finished 11-for-31 from three and went to the line 10 more times than the Gamecocks did.

“Here’s a stat. We got 18 offensive rebounds; we created 18 turnovers. We shot 14 free throws. How do we not convert 18 offensive rebounds and 18 turnovers into more free throw opportunities? Our half court offense was not what it needed to be today,” Martin said. “We’ll learn from this. “

South Carolina tried to spark something again late trailing by eight, getting a Leveque and-one dunk but Princeton would respond with two free throws and the hot streak from Couisnard from deep late wasn’t enough.

Couisnard finished with a team-best 17 points on 7-for-18 shooting, 3-for-8 from three.

The other two guards offensively—James Reese and Erik Stevenson—combined for 19 points on 6-for-30 shooting from the field and 1-for-15 from three with Stevenson 0-for-10.

“(Stevenson’s) in the gym every morning and every night shooting balls. He better shoot number 18 when it’s open. What we have to do is we have to get our bigs to help us a little bit and try and create a little space on the perimeter,” Martin said. “That was our biggest problem today, we couldn’t get the ball in the paint. That’s more credit to them than a failure to us.”

Up next: South Carolina plays Western Kentucky on Sunday in Asheville at 5 p.m. on ESPNU.

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