South Carolina’s regular season comes to a close Saturday with a trip to Vanderbilt.
1. Minaya Update
Justin Minaya got his cast off this week and went through drills on Thursday. As of Thursday night, the plan was to have Minaya practice Friday, and then make a decision Saturday about whether he can play.
If he does play, Minaya will be wearing what Frank Martin described as a “wacky looking splint” on his left (shooting) thumb, which may affect how he is able to shoot.
Minaya cleared for basketball activities
2. Post partners
The Gamecocks have been on a season-long quest to figure out who to pair with Maik Kotsar in the post. Alanzo Frink and Wildens Leveque got starts early in the season, with Jalyn McCreary installed as the backup, but nothing clicked. So Martin went small, with Minaya and Keyshawn Bryant handling the forward spots. That was the Gamecocks’ best lineup until Minaya got hurt. The forced Frink back into the lineup and he scored just ten total points in the first five games back in the lineup.
But then things began to change. Frink scored a career-high 22 points against Georgia, followed by 10 points against Alabama and eight against Mississippi State. Leveque and McCreary haven’t had statistical explosions like that, but both are playing markedly better than they were earlier in the season. McCreary had eight points and four rebounds in the first half against Tennessee before leaving with a head injury that essentially cost him the next to games (he played against LSU but barely). In his last five full games, McCreary is averaging 7.0 points and 3.2 rebounds, along with athletic defense. Leveque is averaging 3.4 points and 3.4 rebounds over his last five games, but his improvement hasn’t been in numbers. Leveque has always been a good rebounder and capable scorer at the rim, but he was such a liability on defense that Martin could only play him a couple minutes at a time. The light bulb has started to come on for Leveque, and he is playing much better on defense, providing a badly needed rim-protector.
None of the three has taken over (aside from Frink’s Georgia game), but as a group, they are combining to give the Gamecocks 40 good minutes a night.
“Those three guys all did their part to help us win,” Martin said after the Mississippi State game.
3. SEC Standings
First, the disclaimer that the SEC does not break ties for the regular season, only tournament seeds.
Currently, three teams, LSU, Auburn, and Florida, are tied for second place in the SEC. South Carolina and Mississippi State sit a game back. If South Carolina wins and any of those three lose, South Carolina will once again finish in the top four of the SEC. South Carolina has been in the top four three of the last four years, more often than anyone but Kentucky, and yet the Gamecocks still don’t get credit in the conference or nationally.
“It’d be a great achievement to be able to say that you’re a top four team, again,” Martin said. “Everyone keeps picking us every year in the bottom three of the league. I think these players deserve a lot of credit that we’re in the conversation to end up in the top four or five.”
Looking ahead to the tournament, however, South Carolina lost to the three teams ahead of the Gamecocks, so they would lose a tiebreak. The best seed South Carolina can get is fifth, which only comes with a single, bye, not the coveted double-bye. South Carolina would have to begin play Thursday, something Martin doesn’t mind.
“I’d like to coach on Saturday one time in this conference tournament,” Martin said. “We’ve played on Wednesdays, we’ve played on Thursdays, and we’ve lost on Fridays.”
Under Martin, South Carolina has lost in the quarterfinals five times and once each in the first (2013) and second (2018) rounds.
4. Bracketology
South Carolina is still in Joe Lunardi’s Next Four out. Playing Vanderbilt may drop South Carolina’s NET ranking, even with a win (I’m not even going to pretend to know). So the only thing South Carolina can do is win in Nashville Saturday, and then win some more in Nashville next week.
(Not gonna lie - commuting to Greenville for the SEC Tournament this weekend cost y’all a thing to know.)
5. Scouting the Commodores
For just the second time this calendar year, Vanderbilt can say it is coming off a win. Vanderbilt beat Alabama 87-79 this week, its second conference win of the season. Saban Lee, who scored 17 in the first game against South Carolina, had a career-high 38 points, including 15 in the final five minutes, to beat Alabama.
Lee’s heroics notwithstanding, Vanderbilt still struggles to consistently score or stop anybody. The Commodores are allowing an average of 74.8 points per game this season, 301st in the country.
But there is always Memorial Magic, like Maxwell Evans hitting seven threes to beat LSU, and it would seem like the predictable ending to South Carolina’s star-crossed season for something to go wrong Saturday.
The Ws
Who: South Carolina (18-12, 10-7) at Vanderbilt (10-20, 2-15)
When: Saturday, March 7, 12:30 pm
Where: Memorial Gymnasium, Nashville, TN
Watch: SEC Network
