For the first time this season, South Carolina ran up against a fundamentally sound and experienced team that exploited their squad that returns just 15% of last season's scoring and is acclimating several freshmen and transfers to playing together as a unit. Despite missing several players from their 2022 NCAA tournament team, Colorado State played a more complete game tonight despite some solid effort from G.G. Jackson and company. Jackson particularly came alive in the early parts of the 2nd half and finished with 20 points and 7 rebounds, but the 21-point halftime deficit was just too much ground to make up as the Rams expanded the lead to as high as 34 points in the second half.

The Rams were led by a balanced offensive effort from 3 of the 4 players we mentioned in our preview: G John Tonje (14 points), G Isaiah Riveria (12 points), F Patrick Cartier (12 points), but the true star for Colorado State was F James Moors who had a whopping 24 points and tacked on 9 rebounds. The Gamecocks had no answer for Moors on either end all night.

Against Clemson, the Gamecocks were able to cover up some of their offensive deficiencies by outrebounding the Tigers 50-32, but tonight CSU outrebounded the Gamecocks 40-34.

With the loss, South Carolina falls to 2-1 on the season while Colorado State improves to 4-0.

The majority of the early deficit in this game came through an abysmal stretch that saw CSU's 1st half lead balloon from 18-14 with about 8:45 to go in the first half, to a nearly insurmountable 40-19 halftime lead after a 22-5 CSU run to close the half. At one point the Rams made 9 straight shots while the Gamecocks went the final 5:21 of the first half without a single basket.

Things started much better for South Carolina in the early moments of the second half as they were led by some early momentum from G.G. Jackson and a couple of big threes from Meechie Johnson and Jacobi Wright to cut the lead as low as 14 points. As the half wore on, the cold shooting came back with the Gamecocks going 2-13 after cutting the lead to 48-34. By the time South Carolina knocked down another shot, the score gap had widened to a 71-38 nail in the coffin on the back of a 17-2 CSU scoring run.

All in all, South Carolina did have a more competitive second half, getting outscored just 45-34 after losing the first-half battle 40-19, but it's impossible to recover from the two long cold stretches in both the first and second half on a consistent basis.

On a young team like South Carolina's, one thing that absolutely cannot happen is losing the few veteran leaders you have on the floor and that's exactly what happened when season scoring and effort leader Hayden Brown picked up 3 fouls in the first half, and another one in the early moments of the second half, which caused Lamont Paris to be cautious with him from that point forward. In addition to Brown, G.G. Jackson, Josh Gray, and Benjamin Bosman-Verdonk all had at least 3 fouls before the 12-minute media timeout in the second half, which severely limited how aggressive the key inside defenders for South Carolina could be in this one.

The Gamecocks' lengthy defenders will have to find a way to be a little more careful with their foul trouble throughout this season with an already limited depth chart.

South Carolina will have a quick turnaround in the Shriners Children's Charleston Classic as they take on tonight's loser of Davidson and CofC during the 7:30 ET slot tomorrow night on the consolation side of the bracket.

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