NASHVILLE — Unpack the suitcase.
For the first time in six years, South Carolina men’s basketball will have a multi-day stay at the SEC Tournament. The five-game conference tournament losing streak ended when the fifth-seeded Gamecocks took down the No. 12 seed Arkansas 80-66 in the second round at Bridgestone Arena.
The Gamecocks will get their rematch with the team which handed them their worst loss of the regular season, earning another crack at Auburn in Friday’s quarterfinals starting at approximately 3:30 p.m. ET and tying the program’s single-season wins record in the process.
"I thought we played well today in a lot of different ways," Lamont Paris said "Our general body of work was really good.
A tit-for-tat first half felt like it was begging for one team to string a few scores together and seize control. After Arkansas (16-17) scored 11 of the game’s first 14 points the lead was never more than five for either team over the final 15 minutes of the first half, a 13 lead-change session which ended when Meechie Johnson beat the buzzer with a floater in the lane to give the Gamecocks a three-point edge.
It was a rare strong drive from a guard on a day where South Carolina’s (26-6) bigs completely carried the show. Collin Murray-Boyles marked the occasion of his first career postseason game with 24 points on 11-of-15 shooting, an obscenely efficient game Arkansas had no answers for. He scored seven straight points for his team early in the first half to pull the offense out of a brief funk, and was finishing drives from every possible angle and setting the school record for made field goals in an SEC Tournament game.
Left-handed shots, right-handed, dunks, banks and everything in between was working for the freshman in a game where he helped South Carolina score a season-high 52 paint points.
B.J. Mack and Josh Gray both had big hands in it as well. Mack scored nine early points to help South Carolina stay in it early, and Gray had four dunks and two offensive rebounds for some very solid bench minutes. Mack finished with 19 and nine rebounds in his first SEC Tournament game, constantly muscling his way through an overmatched opposing front court.
"Our main thing is defense," guard Ta'Lon Cooper said. "We're a defense-minded team. Coach came in and told us we need to get stops. The more stops we get, we just deflate them. Our offense going to work for itself if we play defense."
Finally South Carolina established some control with a 16-0 run which wrapped around halftime. It scored the last six points of the first half and the opening 10 of the second half, completely turning the lights out on the Razorbacks and forcing an exhausted opponent to chase the game.
They chased, but there was nowhere near enough gas in the tank. South Carolina controlled the pace completely down the stretch, salting away a postseason victory and an opportunity to grab another one tomorrow.
"We played really well today," Paris said. "The guys will get rested, we'll watch a little tape tonight. Hopefully some of the guys that did some pretty good things will carry that forward in terms of confidence as we prepare to play a really, really good team tomorrow."
Tip-off will be 25 minutes after the conclusion of the Tennessee vs. Mississippi State quarterfinal, which starts at 1 p.m. ET.
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