FINAL: Carolina's Late Comeback Attempt Falls Short In 66-59 Loss To Tennessee
South Carolina's men's basketball team entered the Colonial Life Arena on senior night looking to defeat the Tennessee Volunteers and slide on into first place alongside their SEC East counterpart. Unfortunately, it was the Volunteers who hit the majority of the clutch shots this time around, ending Carolina's title hopes with a 66-59 defeat.
In the first eight minutes of the game, both squads made it clear how they wanted to attack offensively: the Gamecocks were going to swing the ball around looking for open threes, while Tennessee was going work the ball inside and try to get shots from within 12 feet. During this stretch, it was the Volunteers who were more successful, getting the ball to Jonas Aidoo and forcing Carolina's frontcourt defenders to work hard to keep him from creating space.
After the second TV timeout, it became a game of mini-runs with both teams going on their own 4-0 and 5-0 runs between the 12:37 and 5:18 mark. However, the player that changed the half on his own accord was Dalton Knecht, who hit four 3-pointers, two of them even with a defender right in his grill. On the other end, the Gamecocks had a hard time generating open looks when Meechie Johnson was on the bench between the 9:00 and 4:59 mark in the first half, and the stat sheet back that up, with the team only scoring four points.
This all culminated into an 11-point halftime deficit for Paris' team.
BJ Mack tries to stay in the air space of Volunteer forward Jonas Aidoo (6th Mar., 2024)
Jeff Blake | USA Today Network
After going down by as many as 12 points in the first four and a half minutes of the second half, multiple bench players in Myles Stute, Josh Gray would come onto the court and make multiple defensive stops, and combined with a couple of offensive buckets, injected life back into the CLA. However, just when the crowd got right back in it, two straight questionable fouls would be called on Gamecock defenders on consecutive possessions, with the second one ending in a Dalton Knecht four-point play from the bottom corner.
Being down 10 points with 2:51 left in the game, Carolina mounted a ferociuous run that saw Tennessee's lead cut down to as low as three, but an inability to draw fouls late would do the Gamecocks in. With the loss, Lamont's team is now out of the running for the SEC regular season title, and must pick themselves back up for a tricky spot on Saturday at Mississippi State, where they'll look to lock up a double-bye for the SEC Tournament.
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