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Missed chances add up in tough loss for South Carolina

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Lamont Paris (Grace Sorrells/GamecockCentral)

From the early minutes, something felt off. South Carolina kept taking good shots but kept on missing.

That would continue to be a common trend for most of Tuesday night. Couple that with multiple other self-inflicted mistakes, and the Gamecocks fell victim to a 74-69 loss against Georgia.

A lot went wrong for South Carolina to say the least, especially in the second half. After going up by as much as nine points, the Gamecocks let the game get away from them by not taking advantage of key opportunities.

“We didn’t deserve to be where we were in the game down the stretch to be 100 percent honest with you,” head coach Lamont Paris said. “Gave up 17 second-chance points, we go 17-for-32 from the free throw line, we sent them to the free throw line just as many times. A litany of just lack of discipline type plays. And then you throw on top of that we just didn’t play very well.”

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One of the main issues was the team’s free throw shooting. With 32 attempts, they shot just 53.1 percent at the line. Meanwhile, Georgia had the same number of free throw chances and made 78.1 percent of them. With the game being decided by five points, it’s fair to say that’s why South Carolina lost.

But there’s more to it than that. For the most part, the Gamecocks played well in the paint during the first half. They were doing a fine job of crashing the boards, getting a lot of put backs and being physical. However, they couldn’t keep it up in the second half.

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The Bulldogs seemingly played a lot more aggressive after halftime and won the rebound battle 45-36. This gave them extra looks, leading to 17 second-chance points.

Even with all of this momentum, Georgia couldn’t gain a big lead. Despite how bad things were at times, South Carolina found a way to make it a two-point game with just under five minutes left.

However, that would be about as close as it got. The Gamecocks continued to struggle from the field, especially from three-point range. They went 3-for-13 from deep in the second half.

“It was just an off night, you know? Shots wasn’t falling,” Meechie Johnson said. “Just got to get back in the lab and get back to shooting and hope they go in.”

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With not much time before its next game, South Carolina will have to find a way to solve the problems that hindered it so much against Georgia.

“I think you have to get in there, get more familiar with it and work it out yourself,” Paris said. “I can’t yell a person into it, can’t get them more shots and just say ‘keep shooting it.’ A guy’s got to get into the gym more and get their confidence up a little more, see a couple go in, and then it can snowball after that.”

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