AUBURN, ALA.—There was a moment halfway through the second half when Wildens Leveque was hacked going to the rim, the whistle blew and the baseline official threw up a fist signaling a foul.
It’s not atypical to see that happen in college basketball—actually, it’s a pretty frequent occurrence, especially a Frank Martin team—but there was one problem.
Those were the first two free throw attempts of the second half for South Carolina and there was 10:32 left.
“At the end of the day, if we’re only going to shoot nine free throws like we did the other night, then we have to make 14 or 15 threes to offset (it),” Martin said. “We went 6-for-21. If we’re not going to attack the rim and play physical at the rim then you have to make jump shots. When you don’t, you’re not going to win.”
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The Gamecocks oddly enough shot a little bit better than Auburn by two percentage points but shot only nine free throws compared to the Tigers’ 21.
They’d make just three while Auburn hit 18.
But it’s a growing problem for Martin and his team with the Gamecocks shooting fewer than 10 free throws in back-to-back games for the first time since Martin took over eight seasons ago.
The last time it happened was in 2012, Darrin Horn’s final season, where the Gamecocks shot a combined 17 free throws against Alabama and Auburn.
The main problem is the team settling for jump shots, contested ones for the most part. The Gamecocks covered up some bad free throw numbers by hitting 16 threes against Texas A&M but only hit six Wednesday night.
“With the guards especially we have to do a better job of getting to the rim and trying to draw more fouls,” Justin Minaya said. “We need more guys getting to the rim.”
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Only three of the nine players who logged minutes against Auburn shot free throws.
Shooting free throws is a big piece of Martin's philosophy with his teams ranking in the top 100 in free throw rate nationally five of the last six years. This year they're 166th nationally and have shot nine and eight free throws in consecutive games.
The only guard who was able to consistently get to the rim was Jermaine Couisnard, who led the team with five free throw attempts. He only made one of those, but showed a consistent effort to drive the ball and try to draw to contact.
“I know they have a good shot blocker,” he said. “I try to get it over him and get my man behind me when I come off the screen. Then it’s being aggressive, coming to two feet and try to get it over them.”
It was another solid game for the team’s new point guard with Couisnard finishing at 16 points on 7-for-14 shooting and two assists to two turnovers.
Since taking over as the point guard three games ago, he’s averaging 19.7 points, 2.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 3.7 turnovers and shooting 46.9 percent from the field. He's also 5-for-12 from the line.
“I feel like I haven’t been scared of anyone I’ve played against,” Couisnard said. “Whoever they put in front of me I just attack.”
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He was the only one who really was able to get anything consistently going in the backcourt with the Gamecocks turning in their third-worst offensive efficiency of SEC play, in large part because they couldn’t handle some of Auburn’s pressure.
“We couldn’t pass the ball. The game of basketball is real simple: the team that passes wins. The teams that don’t pass don’t win. They just dug up in us to where we couldn’t pass,” Martin said. “We were unable, with any lineup, to get ball movement and play through post-ups. We had to get away from the post-ups and go to opening the court like they did us. They opened the court and drove us. We couldn’t drive them. They won, we lost.”
