Thoughts about South Carolina

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,674]

I'm just now getting a chance to watch the full game of them against Kentucky (their 2nd biggest win behind beating Tenn in Knox), but they're more or less the darling of the conference so far. Lamont pretty much has a guaranteed SEC COTY spot locked down, with his team having a run that'd be relatable to the 2017-18 Auburn one (remains to be seen if they also hoist a trophy). 

27 point road loss to Alabama (in their first road game), 2 point road win vs Mizz, 13 point road win vs Ark, 4 point road win vs Tenn, 10 point road win vs UGA. That's a pretty sterling road record, although they have a murderer's row of hard road games to close out this season, starting with this one. 

44th in NET, 45th in KenPom, 108th Strength of Schedule rating. 12th in offensive PPG in the conference, but 5th when you account for pace (they intentionally play slow as hell). #1 in Opponent PPG, 3 points better than #2 in Auburn. They're 4th when considering pace, and Auburn is #1 by that same metric. Good site for looking at basic stats - https://basketball.realgm.com/ncaa/team_stats/2024/Averages/Team_Totals/0/8/fg_pct/desc

From what I can tell, they kinda play at a similar speed to how last year's Auburn team, although that team WANTED to play faster and just couldn't in a safe manner. They play very slowly and play very efficiently. I'd be surprised if we hang like 80 on them for example, but I'd also be fairly shocked if we don't get win by 10ish. You could map it similarly to the TAMU game in terms of ugliness; however, SCar has one 7 footer and he's only averaging 9 minutes per game. Henry Coleman from A&M is the type of center that physically wins against Broome; I don't know if SCar has that same type of guy as a starter. Broome being smothered was a huge reason why we didn't score much for Texas, as you'd expect. 

A big win here matters more for effectively eliminating a SEC peer as a Regular Season trophy competitior. Unless the bottom comes out for Auburn (or South Carolina ig), these two will prob be around the same conf. record going forward, but we'll have the tiebreaker

[GwillMac6 20,687]

It’s a huge freaking game!!!!!! South Carolina has been the exception to the rule of being bad away from home that most of college basketball is this season!!! You beat Tennessee in Thompson boiling!? You got everyone’s undivided attention!!!