South Carolina men's basketball took a conference home game all the way down to the final seconds for the first time this season, but could note quite pull off the upset.
After losing the first five SEC home games by an average of 25.2 points, the Gamecocks fought Arkansas all the way to the wire and even had a lead in the final minutes, but the Razorbacks survived with a 65-63 victory.
South Carolina (8-15, 1-9 SEC) trailed by as many as 11 points with 13 minutes to go, but slowly fought back into the game behind huge performances from Josh Gray and Meechie Johnson. Gray scored a career-high 20 points and matched his career-high in rebounds with 14, pulling in seven boards on each side of the ball. Johnson also scored 20 points, 17 of which came in the second half after he did not knock down a field goal in the opening 20 minutes. Johnson went 6-of-8 shooting after halftime and 5-of-6 from 3-point range, with several of those deep blasts trimming into the Arkansas (16-7, 5-5 SEC) lead in the second half.
The Razorbacks had balanced scoring with four different players scoring in double-figures. Jalen Graham and Devo Davis scored 16 and 15 respectively, with Graham going 8-of-10 from the field. Arkansas led almost the whole way in seach of its first road win of the season and a victory that would take it back to .500 play in the leaue, but South Carolina slowly scaled the mountain.
A 9-0 South Carolina run keyed by a pair of Johnson 3-pointers helped South Carolina take its first lead of the second half at 59-58 with 4:03 remaining, and they even had chances to extend the lead against an Arkansas offense struggling to get anything going. Eric Musselman's team missed 10 of its final 12 shots from the floor aginst more of South Carolina's 1-3-1 zone. The teams traded buckets through the closing minutes, with six lead changes in a span of under three minutes of play.
The sixth and final lead change of that span proved to be the game-winning basket, with Anthony Black converted a layup to make it 64-63 Arkansas with 1:21 to go. South Carolina's next possession ended when GG Jackson was called for a moving screen, but the Gamecocks had another chance ot take the lead after Black missed a layup. The possession ended in Johnson missing a 3-pointer, but a missed free throw at the other end of the court gave South Carolina the ball with 19 seconds left and a chance to walk it off down a point.
The Gamecocks worked the ball inside, but Hayden Brown's layup was off the mark. Black secured the rebound, part of a stat-stuffing day of 13 points, six boards, four assists two blocks and a steal in which he played all 40 minutes. He tacked on one more free throw to make it 65-63, and the last-ditch heave up the other way misfired.
On the injury front, Ford Cooper Jr. did not play because of a deep thigh bruise he suffered in practice.
South Carolina will now have to take a seven-game losing streak into a pair of road SEC games, starting next Tuesday night at Missouri and concluding on Saturday at Ole Miss.
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