Men's basketball drops below .500 with 71-60 loss at Georgia

South Carolina turned the ball over on six of the first nine possessions, had a stretch of nearly eight minutes without making a shot from the floor and lost 71-60 at Georgia in another sloppy performance to officially drop below .500 on the season.

After a string of close losses against ranked opponents, this looked like a prime opportunity for South Carolina (10-11, 0-8 SEC) to finally get on the board in SEC play against a Georgia (15-6, 3-5 SEC) squad reeling in its own right. The homesteading Bulldogs entered the match-up on a four-game losing streak, but quickly jumped out to a 14-3 lead thanks to more self-inflicted wounds from the Gamecocks.

"We find ourselves in unfortautely familiar territory with a similar culprit," Lamont Paris said. "In terms of we turned the ball over 17 times, we gave up 11 second-chance points, and those things impact the game."

In a continuation of the season’s most debilitating trend, South Carolina’s offense struggled to complete even the simplest of passes, firing three cross-court deliveries out of bounds before the first media timeout. The one and only consistent offensive stretch of the game followed as some crisper possessions and cleaner looks led to an 11-2 run to trim the deficit to two, but it never got closer.

An excruciating scoring drought killed any momentum, over six minutes without a single point as Georgia re-established its double-digit advantage. For as well as the Gamecocks battled on the defensive end, eventually the lack of scoring caught up. Four Bulldogs scored in double-figures to in a balanced attack, led by freshman star Asa Newell's 17. and a 15-2 run late in the first half all but ended any sort of drama for the evening.

"Coach is preaching in the locker room to be strong with the ball and value it," Nick Pringle said. "That's been a struggle for us. Having 10+ turnovers these last couple games has been tough for us. A lot of those plays turn into points. It's kind of tough for us to recover from that once that happens."

‘Jamarii Thomas provided a little bit of a spark off the bench for the second consecutive game. South Carolina’s former starting point guard scored 19 in his first game back from injury, and dropped in back-to-back made 3-pointers early in the second half to briefly kickstart the offense as part of his 19-point performance. And despite clearly playing through pain with his heavily-wrapped left thumb, Collin Murray-Boyles scored another 18 points and 13 in the second half.

But with an offensive performance like this, there was never any serious threat of a run. The energy from Saturday’s 14-point rally to force overtime against Mississippi State could not be duplicated, as Georgia’s lead went no higher than 16 or lower than 10 at any point after the under-4 media timeout until briefly dipping to nine with under a minute remaining in the by then inevitable outcome.

"I've tweaked some of the things that we do just to simplify a couple things," Paris said. "But certainly it comes down to personnel's ability to execute at times."

Coaching, talent, roster construction, overall execution. Everything is an issue for the Gamecocks right now, and it does not feel like there is much light at the end of the the tunnel for the 2024-25 team.

“There’s another whole timeline in which we make three plays and have three wins vs. zero wins," Paris said. "And we’re in a different conversation at that point, because there’s a lot of really talented teams with a little number next to them that have three wins in our conference, it’s just what the league is. That’s the reality of it.”

Make it eight defeats against seven different opponents, and the halfway point of conference play coming up on Saturday with the win column still empty.

The reality now is a month long losing streak.

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