ATHENS, GA: A dreadful month of basketball for South Carolina came to a merciful end Tuesday night in Athens with a 71-60 loss to Georgia. The Gamecocks won’t play again until February 1st, so their winless January leaves them at 0-8 in the SEC, continuing their worst start ever in league play, and 10-11 overall.
The Gamecocks never led in this one and fell into an early 14-3 hole with six turnovers in the first six minutes. They got as close as two points in the first half but never caught up to the Bulldogs.
A Zachary Davis three pulled USC to within 18-16 with 10:12 to play in the first half. The Gamecocks wouldn’t make another basket for nearly eight minutes, and by the time Collin Murray-Boyles made a layup at the 2:25 mark, USC trailed 33-20.
It was 35-21 at the half as the Gamecocks had more turnovers in the first half, ten, than they had made field goals, six. Meantime, Georgia had a good flow to its offense with four three-pointers while also scoring 14 points ini the paint.
Georgia scored the first points of the second half for a 16-point lead, and the Gamecocks were not able to make a deep cut into the deficit for most of the final twenty minutes They trailed by double digits until closing to within nine points with 1:10 left. That’s as close they would get.
It was another bad night of ball possession for the Gamecocks who finished with 17 turnovers. That’s five straight games with at least 16 turnovers. However, Georgia only scored ten points off those turnovers.
The Bulldogs were good enough offensively without them. They shot 51% for the game with a 7-15 mark from three. They also scored 34 points in the paint, all from their three bigs. The Dogs also outscored the Gamecocks 11-3 in second chance points.
Jamarii Thomas and Murray-Boyles led USC in scoring with 19 and 18 points respectively. Freshman Asa Newell led four Georgia playersi in double-figures with 17 points. He also grabbed ten rebounds.
The Gamecocks are back home Saturday night to face Texas A&M.