The pieces still look a little disjointed, the square pegs distinctly shoved into square holes.

But for now, it is enough.

South Carolina men’s basketball struggled through an ugly first half against lowly Mercer, but eventually found some daylight in a 84-72 win in the final tune-up before a pivotal two games at the Fort Myers invitational next week.

“I thought they did a really good job and made a bunch of shots," Lamont Paris said. "Luckily we made some shots, too. We felt like we were able to escape out of there with a win.”

Escape is the only way to put it, and it is a troubling sign after what the team already put on display in a home loss to North Florida earlier in the year.

By halftime, the box score offered more questions than answers. South Carolina (3-2) led 36-32, but none of the pieces really added up. The Gamecocks had more turnovers than assists, were losing the rebounding battle and in an absolutely confounding statistic, team star Collin Murray-Boyles had only attempted two shots.

One was a 3-pointer under two minutes into the contest and the other was a transition layup where he beat his man down the court, meaning the likely first-round NBA Draft Pick did not attempt a shot in half court offense for over 18 minutes going into the break.

And even as the offense started to feed Murray-Boyles a little more early in the second half, it was not enough to fully pull away. Midway through the second half Mercer (2-2) went on a stretch where it knocked down six out of eight shots. The last of which was an Ahmad Robinson stepback 3-pointer, and it actually gave the visitors a 60-59 lead with under 11 minutes remaining.

The defense was porous at best for the first half of the second half, getting burned on several simple screen-and-roll actions and leaving shooters open on the perimeter. A Mercer team which averaged 65 points in two losses against Division I opponents to start the season beat that total with seven minutes still on the clock, and looked like it had an opportunity to win the game outright.

"The biggest strength of last year’s team to compare and contrast necessarily, they were really good earlier in the season at some of those things," Paris said on the defense. "Some of these things I think with a super high level of concentration are more re-producable, and it's just taken us a little bit longer to consistently do some of those things. And because of it, we end up giving up more points than what I think we should based on our physical attributes."

Through five games, South Carolina has allowed 70.2 points per game on average and at least 70 in three games after only doing so seven times the entire regular season a year ago.

If nothing else, though, on a flawed night with what appears to be a flawed team at this early stage, the best stretch of the night was when the Gamecocks needed it most. Immediately after falling behind and staring down the barrel of a second quadrant four loss in the first five games of the year, South Carolina ripped off an 11-2 run to re-establish game control and calm some nerves.

Jamarii Thomas had two of the biggest moments of the run, a strong drive inside to draw two free throws he hit and another one for a layup. Thomas finished with 19 points, the high of his young Gamecock career. And speaking of high scoring marks, Zachary Davis carried the offense for large chunks of play. He knocked down two 3-pointers and scored 18 points overall, a new career-high.

"I'm still learning a lot of stuff just being at a different level," Thomas said. "Just buiding my confidence each and every game and trusting my work. But I would say I'm confident and I'm comfortable, for sure."

Defensively the Gamecocks found one solid stretch of five minutes where it kept Mercer from making a field goal, took advantage of its size advantage inside and wore down the feisty Bears.

A win, but still an uneven performance. And with two neutral site games against stiffer competition coming next week, it feels like there is already a little bit of urgency to figure it out.

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