It was a little sloppier than Lamont Paris probably would have wanted, but South Carolina men’s basketball eventually pulled away from Division III Wooster in its final exhibition game before the 2024-25 season.

Paris saw his team pick up a 86-60 win against his alma mater, eventually shaking loose of the Fighting Scots thanks to a 13-0 run midway through the second half.

As you would expect, Collin Murray-Boyles carried the game. The sophomore forward had 19 points and 11 rebounds in just 23 minutes of action. Here were a few more takeaways from the action as South Carolina prepares to open up its regular season on Monday against North Florida.

This team did non answer any big questions an exhibition win, but there might be some potential solutions to problems down the road. One of the biggest questions for this team will be how it replaces Ta’Lon Cooper and Meechie Johnson’s scoring. Asking two freshmen to do it might not be reasonable all year, but it is clear both will shoot.

True freshman Cam Scott and redshirt freshman Arden Conyers combined for 32 points, shooting 11-of-19 from the floor and 7-of-13 from 3-point range.

“Give props to Arden,” Scott said. “We had a rough start in the first half just getting momentum, but he came out there in the second half and got us going real quick. I feel like most of mine came in the first and most of his came in the second, so the way we kind of balanced that out really uplifted us to the win.”

Conyers did not hit the floor until the final four minutes of the first half, but hit a 3-pointer on his second offensive possession in the game and went on a personal 8-0 run early in the second half after Wooster cut the deficit to two. He finished with 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting, and drew rave reviews from his head coach.

“I’m certain that he is ready offensively,” Paris said. “He just needs to continue to clean some things up defensively. He can score around the basket, he can attack off the dribble, he can pass relatively well for a guy of his size, he can make open 3s, there’s not a lot that he can’t do from an offensive standpoint.”

No way around it, South Carolina struggled to move the ball against Division III opposition. The Gamecocks had a staggering 18 turnovers, oftentimes with careless passes and lackluster counters when base sets broke down. Eight different players had at least one turnover, and starting point guard Jamarii Thomas only had one assist in 14 minutes. It all came to a head early in the second half, when Wooster went on a 12-2 run out of the locker room.

“I thought we were lethargic and generally careless in a lot of ways,” Paris said. “I haven’t watched it over yet so I don’t know this, but I feel like in that stretch we were turning the ball over against a team that isn’t known for its full court pressure or anything like that.”

On top of that, South Carolina finished just 9-of-20 from the free throw line. Maybe it was just working out some rust or starting slowly in a game that didn’t count, but between the turnovers, missed free throws and several defensive assignment breakdowns on backdoor cuts, this was an uncharacteristically sloppy performance from the Gamecocks.

Who can get to the rim on this team? Murray-Boyles, for sure. Scott and Conyers showed it in some spurts, but they are still freshmen who will have to learn how to take on defenders at this level. And besides that? There was not a lot of explosiveness from South Carolina on offense.

Most of it was either posting the ball up with Murray-Boyles or Nick Pringle, or settling for outside shots — 34 3-point attempts to be exact. Maybe that was a way to make a living last year with Johnson and Cooper still in the fold, but relying on a barrage of outside shots with a big-leaning roster was a concerning early sign.

“Their defensive concept was to crowd the paint,” Paris said. “So it was a little harder for us to do it off the dribble, and that yielded more 3-point attempts for us.”

Wooster will not be the last time to pack it in tight against this South Carolina roster. The Gamecocks will need a counter, and soon.

Closing out with a positive, this team does appear to have some scoring options. In addition to Scott and Conyers off the bench, Jacobi Wright popped up with another sturdy 10-point performance as the sixth man.

If this team can take care of the ball a little better and clean up at the free throw line, there could still be an efficient offense in this group that does not have to rely on just Murray-Boyles and his NBA talent inside.

“That’s the beauty of having some depth,” Paris said. “We did that last year. We had multiple times where we had a different leading scorer, or a guy stepped up and made plays. The early signs are that we may have some of that again this year.”

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