It was all about Meechie Johnson for most of the night, and that was enough.

South Carolina men’s basketball’s starting point guard turned in a career night, putting his team on his back in a 65-53 win over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the ACC/SEC Challenge at Colonial Life Arena.

Johnson was the spark plug on a rough offensive performance all game, scoring 29 points and for large swaths of play serving as South Carolina’s (6-0) only consistent form of scoring. After going seven minutes to start the game without hitting a shot from the floor as a team and trailing 8-0 off the opening tip, Johnson took over to pull the home team back into the game

He hit back-to-back 3-pointers along with Jacobi Wright to erase Notre Dame’s (3-3) early edge before the game settled into a defensive slog in the first half.

Of course, Johnson broke the ice.

He scored 10 points over the final seven minutes of the first half, propelling South Carolina to a lead at the break despite only having four made field goals outside Johnson’s heroics.

But the defense turned up the intensity to stay in the game amidst struggles on the other end, peppering Micah Shrewsberry’s team with tight man-to-man defense and active hands to cut off drivers. Markus Burton entered the game as Notre Dame’s leading scorer averaging 18 points per game, but did not dent the scoresheet at all in the first 15 minutes and finished with just eight points in a game where his team suffered three shot clock violations and 12 total turnovers.

A back-and-forth second half broke South Carolina’s way behind a stretch of 12 misses out of 13 attempts for Notre Dame from the field, all while Johnson continued cooking at the other end. He tied his career-high in scoring with a deep 3-pointer that gave the home team its largest lead of the night at 51-41 with under eight minutes to go, and broke it with a smooth baseline jumper inside the final five minutes.

B.J. Mack poured in his usual 17 points — albeit in much quieter fashion this time — the final defensive tally was the lowest point total allowed for the Gamecocks all season and South Carolina improved to 6-0 in maybe the best home night of the Lamont Paris era to date. Next up will be a home tilt with George Washington, the final test before next week's rivalry shhowdown at also undefeated Clemson.

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