SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASKETBALL

Right now, the Gamecocks don’t know when they’ll be getting Jermaine Couisnard back, and Frank Martin said the redshirt freshman’s status is still up in the air for Saturday’s game against Tennessee.

“I got no idea. There’s nothing structurally wrong. He tweaked his back. It’s all muscle spasms. I thought he would practice yesterday and he did not,” Martin said. “At shoot around today he went through things half speed. I’m not into putting guys on the court who aren’t mentally prepared to go out and lay it on the line.”

Couisnard strained his back a few days after the loss to Stetson and hadn’t practiced since then, doing just a few things in shoot around Tuesday, a few hours before the Gamecocks lost 81-68 to Florida.

Also see: Instant analysis from Tuesday's conference-opening loss

With Couisnard, the team’s sixth man out, the prevailing thought was Trae Hannibal and TJ Moss would split the bulk of those minutes, however it was Moss getting almost all of them.

Moss played 13 minutes, going 1-for-1 from the field with two assists, a steal and three turnovers.

Entering Tuesday, Moss was averaging 2.6 points on 23.5 percent shooting from the field while averaging 1.3 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game in 13.8 minutes.

“TJ is probably our most intelligent player at the guard spot from an understanding standpoint. He had a real bad turnover today and has a tendency to have a bad turnover in a bad moment,” “He’s a very intelligent player. He’s usually in the right spot, he knows what we’re trying to do and he knows where he belongs. Where TJ has to continue to make the adjustment is with the speed of college basketball.”

Also see: Everything Frank Martin said postgame

Meanwhile Hannibal, who played almost 20 minutes in two of his last three games, only played two minutes.

The freshman who’s been a sparkplug recently off the bench scored four points, had a steal and didn’t turn the ball over in two first-half minutes but didn’t play the entire second half.

This season Hannibal is averaging 10.8 minutes per game while averaging three points, 1.7 rebounds and an assist per game. He’s shooting 41.9 percent from the floor.

In the three games leading up to this one, Hannibal was averaging 14 minutes, shooting 53.8 percent and averaging 5.3 points, three rebounds, two steals and 1.3 assist per game.

“Let’s talk about the guys I actually played,” Martin said when asked why Hannibal didn’t play more.

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With both bench guards playing a combined 15 minutes, it means the Gamecocks (8-6, 0-1 SEC) relied heavily on their starting guards AJ Lawson and Jair Bolden.

Both scored in double figures at 12 points apiece, but combined to shoot 7-for-29 from the field, haul in a combined five rebounds have three assists and four turnovers.

The biggest issue, Martin said postgame, was their work on the defensive end where Andrew Nembhard scored 21 points as the Gators averaged over a point per possession.

“AJ and Jair, they both play off their jump shot. Offensively, Jair struggles getting by people off the dribble. He plays off his jump shot. I knew that when we recruited him. AJ can do that and for whatever reason he’s just passive. He just didn’t go. The times he went he didn’t make positive plays. I thought defensively their spirit was good. Then you get put in a ball screen every single play,” he said. “You have to keep fighting. We gave in guarding Nembhard. We gave in and that’s disappointing.”