Martin: 'Our defense let us down'
Frank Martin is a defensive-minded guy, and looking at the numbers, the Gamecocks are arguably the best defensive team in the SEC since league play started.
But Wednesday night it was that end of the court that doomed South Carolina to the tune of a 79-76 loss to Mississippi State on the road.
“Defensively we scrapped. We’re not going to give in; players don’t give in and get out of the way. Our fundamentals with the way we tried to play were just not good. The guards were not good,” Martin said. “Our defense let us down. We turned it over too much and our defense didn’t help us much.”
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The Gamecocks gave up 79 points, the most since allowing 84 against Ole Miss, and couldn’t stop Mississippi State’s guards at all, allowing the Bulldogs to shoot 50 percent from the field and a whopping 42 percent (5-for-12) from three.
State also had 28 points in the paint, almost a direct result of the Gamecock guards not being able to keep their men in front of them.
The Bulldogs’ starting guards—Nick Weatherspoon and D.J. Stewart Jr.—combined for 34 points on 10-for-27 shooting and it was hard to keep them out of the paint. State outshot South Carolina from the free throw line 36 to 19.
“We have to do a better job helping the bigs out,” Jermaine Couisnard said. “The more we extend the harder it is to put the ball in the paint. We have to do a better job.”
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If there was one big positive it was containing potential SEC Player of the Year Reggie Perry, who only scored 10 points on 2-for-8 shooting.
That responsibility fell to Maik Kotsar, who’s been on an absolute tear lately and contained an all-league player to well below his scoring average.
Martin said containing a first-round talent like Perry was “all Maik” and it would have been “really, really hard to defend” him if Kotsar wasn’t on the court.
The only problem was State had another good big man in Abdul Ado, who scoring 14 points on 5-for-6 shooting
“It’s hard. They’re a good front court,” Kotsar said. “Both of them are really physical. Perry’s face up game is really good. Ado is just long, athletic, can get rebounds and just is a good player overall.”
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It was evident South Carolina (16-10, 8-5 SEC) missed Jalyn McCreary, who didn't travel to Starkville after suffering a concussion against Tennessee.
He might not have been able to match up size-wise with a guy like Ado, but his athleticism would have helped him there. Instead, the Gamecocks tried to throw as much as possible at him and couldn’t contain him down low.
“We missed him tonight. We got nothing off our bench today,” Martin said. “Our bench didn’t really help us today. That had been good for us lately and our bench wasn’t good for us today.”
