SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASKETBALL
Just glancing at the stats before Sunday’s game, it looked like the Gamecocks didn’t have much of a shot to score 50 points against Virginia, let alone 70.
Virginia was considered the ninth-best team in the country and the nation’s best defensive team, allowing just 44.2 points per game with the top effective field goal percentage against.
That didn’t matter to South Carolina, who put together arguably its best offensive performance of the year against the reigning national champions.
“We were practicing all week about things we could do,” AJ Lawson. “Coach gave us a great game plan, plays to run. We knew with the defense they played the shots we were going to get. We executed today.”
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The Gamecocks scored 70 points in an 11-point win, the most points scored against the Cavaliers this season and shot 55.1 percent from the field.
Before the game Sunday, no team had shot over 46 percent against that pack-line defense Virginia is known for.
They did it through a number of different ways, with the key one being forcing turnovers and getting open-court opportunities.
The Gamecocks had 23 points off 19 turnovers and outscored Virginia 16-6 in fast break points.
Virginia ended with a defensive efficiency—which measures points allowed per 100 possessions—of 111, which is their second-highest of the season. Only two teams have averaged more than 100 points per 100 possessions against the Hoos this season.
When South Carolina was forced to run its halfcourt sets, they worked the ball inside to the tune of 28 points in the paint, something not many teams are able to do against the Cavaliers.
The biggest sticking point from Frank Martin this week in practice was to swing the ball to second and third sides of the court, keep moving it and try to get their defense out of position.
Whatever the strategy was, it worked.
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“Virginia packs the paint,” Lawson said. “It’s going to be hard for us to drive and find the open man. We had to run our plays their first time, get through the first set and get to the second side, too.”
Strategy is great and scheming up ways to get open looks always helps, but when it comes time for the Gamecocks to hit their shots, they have to.
Sunday they did with Jair Bolden going off for a season-high 22 points followed by 12 from Justin Minaya, 14 from AJ Lawson and 10 from Keyshawn Bryant.
The Gamecocks shot 35.3 percent from three, their third-highest percentage of the season, making six of their 17 attempts. Their 55.1 percent from the field was the highest of the season, a tenth of a percentage point higher than shooting 33-for-60 against UMass.
Over their last four games, the Gamecocks are shooting 46.4 percent from the field. Over their last three wins—all on the road against UMass, Clemson and now Virginia—they’re shooting 51.8 percent.
“We have to make shots,” Martin said. “We made them at UMass, we made them at Clemson and we made them tonight. We didn’t make as many as we should, but we made enough.”
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The offensive performance was arguably the best of the Gamecocks’ season against the toughest defensive opponent they might face all year.
It comes at a time where Martin is trying to simplify things for his team and figure out each player’s role.
Lawson is handling point guard duties and Bolden is playing more off the ball, and whatever is happening is contributing to a lot of success at the moment.
“I’m not telling you I made the right moves, but I think our kids’ spirit is in a really, really good place and they’re committed to what we’re trying to do. We had six days to prepare for this game. We made adjustments on a couple little things to try and attack Virginia because they’re so difficult to score on, and our guys executed outside of that segment with about 14 minutes to go in the game. We created pandemonium,” Martin said. “Outside of that segment offensively, I thought we played really, really well.”
