For one half, South Carolina men’s basketball had the perfect recipe going against one of the nation’s best offenses. Active on the perimeter, shutting down passing lanes, forcing tough shots and being smart with the ball on one end.

Only for one half, though.

South Carolina’s 34-29 halftime lead over No. 22 Xavier quickly dissipated into a 75-66 loss in the first of two games at the Fort Myers Tip-Off as the undefeated Musketeers extended their winning streak to six thanks to a flurry after halftime. Xavier (6-0) will move on to face Michigan in the championship game of the early season tournament, while South Carolina (3-3) will try to salvage one win out of the trip against Virginia Tech at 6 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

In a game where the shooting battle was fairly even, rebounding and turnovers made all the difference. South Carolina entered the season thinking it had a roster which tilted towards frontcourt strength. But through six games, the forwards have struggled. Xavier won the rebounding battle 41-31 and even more strikingly, the offensive rebounding stat 12-4. It took 25 minutes of game time before the Gamecocks finally corralled one of their own missed shots, a Collin Murray-Boyles putback. An early exchange of runs saw Xavier bolt out to a 7-0 lead, South Carolina respond with its best stretch of the season on a 17-0 run, only for Xavier score the next eight points and re-establish some game control.

Murray-Boyles and Nick Pringle both struggled to handle a Xavier frontcourt led by Zach Freemantle and Jerome Hunter, who combined for 26 points and 13 rebounds and constantly forced the issue. With four minutes to go in the first half both South Carolina starting forwards had three fouls, forcing Lamont Paris to play with an ultra small lineup for lengthy stretches of play. It had some flashes, notably when Jordan Butler knocked down a triple and Myles Stute had a strong end to the first half playing the four, but it was not enough over the course of 40 minutes.

South Carolina turned the ball over eight times in the second half leading to 10 Xavier points, helping to trigger a run through the middle of the period which flipped the momentum. The Musketeers reeled off a 13-4 run early in the half to take control and another 7-0 spurt later to extend the lead into double-digits, forcing the Gamecocks to play a little too far from behind.

Murray-Boyles scored just four of his 13 points after halftime, the offense fizzled out after cutting the deficit to four with under four minutes remaining, and South Carolina fell to a ranked opponent.

There were flashes of positivity, and the first half was encouraging. But too many failed boxouts and turnovers — both themes of these early season losses — doomed the Gamecocks again.

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