C
Collyn Taylor
Guest
South Carolina beat Mississippi State 83-71 Tuesday night on Senior Day, moving now to 18-12, 10-6 SEC). Next up is the regular season finale against Vanderbilt at 12:30 p.m. ET.
--This is a massively huge win for South Carolina and the Gamecocks' tournament chances. This will be safely a Quad II win and give the Gamecocks another win over a bubble team as selection Sunday gets closer. It also gives the Gamecocks the tiebreaker over Mississippi State for SEC Tournament seeding.
It can't go understated how important this win was for a Gamecock team in desperate need of a win. A victory against Vandy and some wins in the SEC Tournament could be enough now to get South Carolina into the field.
--Maik Kotsar had about as good a senior day as he could have hoped for from a personal standpoint, piling up 20 points and two rebounds and looking not like the Kotsar from the last two years but the player he spent all year building himself up to be. It's really cool to see a guy like that develop into a potential SEC Defensive Player of the Year candidate. South Carolina isn't in the position they're in this year without him.
--If the Gamecocks end up making the NCAA Tournament, they will have Keyshawn Bryant, Alanzo Frink and Jalyn McCreary to thank for a lot of it. Those three guys have been really good the last few games when available and bring a spark. Bryant had two amazing dunks and Frink put up a solid offensive showing and drew a charge. McCreary continues to show some seriously good flashes of play, hitting a few contested shots. He's money from the mid-range.
All three, though, need to stop fouling as much as they do but combining for 25 points will always help.
--After a few poor defensively performances, the Gamecocks actually played pretty good defense across the board Tuesday night. Tyson Carter went off but they did a good job containing the rest of the team, holding the Bulldogs to 39 shooting and getting Reggie Perry in foul trouble early in the second half, which affected how he was able to play down the stretch. A lot of credit there goes to Maik Kotsar and his defensive prowess.
--The guard rotation, if it was ever more clear, needs to be AJ Lawson, Jermaine Couisnard, Trae Hannibal and Jair Bolden. Those guys give you the athleticism and skill needed to keep things flowing offensively.
--I thought South Carolina's shot selection was really good for the majority of the game. They let the offense come to them and it worked in their favor with one of their more efficient shooting nights in recent memory. They only took 11 threes, making five, but those were within the flow of the offense and the offense just looked good. This is what this offense looks like firing on all cylinders.
--It was early in the game but the Gamecocks' 20-0 run they went on for about five minutes in the first half to build the lead was probably the best stretch of basketball I've seen them play in a very long time. They looked confident offensively and had a few crazy, tough shots go in which only helped later in the game. Also, like it was mentioned before, some really good defense paved the way for that.
--It might go a little unnoticed, but AJ Lawson's three-point play with about two minutes to play was huge. Gamecocks went back up 10 and State was never the same afterwards.
--Against Mississippi State in Starkville, the Gamecocks would get close to getting over the hump but never could, and Tuesday it was the exact opposite. Every time Mississippi State made a run, South Carolina would counter with a huge bucket and State could never really get over the hump.
--This is a massively huge win for South Carolina and the Gamecocks' tournament chances. This will be safely a Quad II win and give the Gamecocks another win over a bubble team as selection Sunday gets closer. It also gives the Gamecocks the tiebreaker over Mississippi State for SEC Tournament seeding.
It can't go understated how important this win was for a Gamecock team in desperate need of a win. A victory against Vandy and some wins in the SEC Tournament could be enough now to get South Carolina into the field.
--Maik Kotsar had about as good a senior day as he could have hoped for from a personal standpoint, piling up 20 points and two rebounds and looking not like the Kotsar from the last two years but the player he spent all year building himself up to be. It's really cool to see a guy like that develop into a potential SEC Defensive Player of the Year candidate. South Carolina isn't in the position they're in this year without him.
--If the Gamecocks end up making the NCAA Tournament, they will have Keyshawn Bryant, Alanzo Frink and Jalyn McCreary to thank for a lot of it. Those three guys have been really good the last few games when available and bring a spark. Bryant had two amazing dunks and Frink put up a solid offensive showing and drew a charge. McCreary continues to show some seriously good flashes of play, hitting a few contested shots. He's money from the mid-range.
All three, though, need to stop fouling as much as they do but combining for 25 points will always help.
--After a few poor defensively performances, the Gamecocks actually played pretty good defense across the board Tuesday night. Tyson Carter went off but they did a good job containing the rest of the team, holding the Bulldogs to 39 shooting and getting Reggie Perry in foul trouble early in the second half, which affected how he was able to play down the stretch. A lot of credit there goes to Maik Kotsar and his defensive prowess.
--The guard rotation, if it was ever more clear, needs to be AJ Lawson, Jermaine Couisnard, Trae Hannibal and Jair Bolden. Those guys give you the athleticism and skill needed to keep things flowing offensively.
--I thought South Carolina's shot selection was really good for the majority of the game. They let the offense come to them and it worked in their favor with one of their more efficient shooting nights in recent memory. They only took 11 threes, making five, but those were within the flow of the offense and the offense just looked good. This is what this offense looks like firing on all cylinders.
--It was early in the game but the Gamecocks' 20-0 run they went on for about five minutes in the first half to build the lead was probably the best stretch of basketball I've seen them play in a very long time. They looked confident offensively and had a few crazy, tough shots go in which only helped later in the game. Also, like it was mentioned before, some really good defense paved the way for that.
--It might go a little unnoticed, but AJ Lawson's three-point play with about two minutes to play was huge. Gamecocks went back up 10 and State was never the same afterwards.
--Against Mississippi State in Starkville, the Gamecocks would get close to getting over the hump but never could, and Tuesday it was the exact opposite. Every time Mississippi State made a run, South Carolina would counter with a huge bucket and State could never really get over the hump.
