Martin: Gamecocks 'thoroughly outplayed' against LSU

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SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASKETBALL

It’s a problem Chris Silva’s battled since his freshman year and Saturday against LSU it came up again.

Less than three minutes into the first half the reigning SEC defensive player of the year was saddled with two fouls and spent the majority of the first half on the bench.

He would play sparingly in the first half and ultimately foul out in his second straight game as the Gamecocks lost 89-67 to LSU on the road.

“It’s happened three of our last four games we’ve been fortunate we’ve escaped because we haven’t played teams that have the front court presence LSU has,” Martin told reporters last night. “We obviously paid a price today. Four of his five fouls were away from the ball. That has to stop. He’s a senior—I don’t know what to tell you—it has to stop.”

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Silva fouled out for the second time in as many games, picking up his fifth with 4:26 to play against the Tigers. He's now picked up at least four fouls in his last four games.

After picking up two points and three rebounds against Vanderbilt, Silva finished Saturday with seven points and three points as the Gamecocks (9-8, 4-1 SEC) struggled to do anything on the boards against the Tigers in just eight minutes.

With Silva on the bench the majority of the game, South Carolina didn’t have a consistent answer for LSU on the boards, getting out-rebounded by 20 (49-29).

In a game where Martin thought the bigs could clean up on the offensive glass, South Carolina had six offensive rebounds while LSU had 34 defensive rebounds.

“We got thoroughly outplayed,” Martin said postgame. “One of the things we spoke about was they’re not a good defensive rebounding team but they’re a really good offensive rebounding team. We had to get offensive rebounds and not give them offensive rebounds. Well, we obviously didn’t do that very well.”

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Coming into Saturday’s game the Gamecocks had won the rebounding margin over their last four SEC games and had, on average, 5.75 more rebounds per game than their opponent.

They were also fifth in the SEC in rebounding margin in conference games and, after Saturday’s loss, slipped to eighth at minus-1.4.

“I never coached in a game where we got destroyed on the glass the way this team got destroyed on the glass,” Martin said. “We had no fight in us today, and they’re too good."

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The Gamecocks slip to 4-1 now in SEC play and have four wins over their first five SEC games for the third time in the last four years.

They’ll return home for a big test against a top 25 Auburn team with tipoff at 6:30 p.m. on the SEC Network.