South Carolina took care of business with a 101-76 exhibition win over Benedict.

South Carolina was without its top two returning players, Keyshawn Bryant and Jermaine Couisnard, who are expected to return to practice Saturday. A third returning player, Tre-Vaughn Minott, also missed the game. That left the game almost entirely to South Carolina’s nine newcomers.

Four Gamecocks scored in double figures, all new faces. James Reese, the North Texas transfer, led all scorers with 21 points. At different points he scored seven and eight straight points for the Gamecocks.

“Reese. Man,” said Benedict coach Artis Maddox. “I knew he was good for North Texas, but it’s different seeing him in person.”

Erik Stevenson added 14 points, four rebounds, and two assists, and shot 4-11 from three. Stevenson made quick decisions with the ball, but also had a couple of defensive lapses.

“We’ve got firepower,” Frank Martin said. “The commitment of James Reese and Erik Stevenson is really good.”

“We shot the ball at a good clip the entire night as a team. That’s why we were brought here. We’ve got to shoot the ball,” Stevenson said. “Frank definitely wasn’t happy with the transition defense.”

Freshman Devin Carter had 13 points, and transfer Josh Gray had a double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds, plus three blocks and two steals. He was a bright spot, but Martin was generally unhappy with the play of the bigs. Wildens Leveque added eight points but only four rebounds. He also earned the first “get him out of there” of the season from Martin, who bemoaned the lack of offensive rebounding (13 rebounds) and inability to draw free throws.

“(Gray) defends ball screens better than any other big on our team, but then the other bigs were not very good,” Martin said. “I thought defensively we were good on the perimeter and bad from the bigs.”

South Carolina shot 57% from the floor and hit 9-26 from three. Benedict only shot 26%, but communication was a work in progress on both ends of the floor.

“Frank definitely wasn’t happy with the transition defense,” Stevenson said. “We’ll drill it on Saturday and be ready on Tuesday.”

“I didn’t think we were crisp on some of the things we did,” Martin said, explaining that there were times when “Everyone just kind of broke off our structure to do their own thing.”

“I think we can be an elite defensive team.”

Notes:

Benedict was 17-25 from the foul line, while South Carolina was 6-7, bringing back some bad memories. … Tajh Green led Benedict with 16 points and nine rebounds. … Both teams had 17 turnovers, but South Carolina had 24 points off and Benedict had 13. … South Carolina opens the season November 9 against USC Upstate.

----

• Not a subscriber? Learn more about Gamecock Central here!

• Watch our live show and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

• Sign up for Gamecock Central's FREE news alerts and daily newsletter.

• Subscribe to our podcast on whatever podcast platform you prefer!

• Follow us on Twitter: @GamecockCentral, @GCChrisClark, @WesMitchellGC, @CollynTaylor and @Mike_Uva.

• Follow Gamecock Central on Instagram @GamecockCentral.