The 3-2-1: Three positives, two negatives, and one lingering question from South Carolina basketball's win over Charleston Southern

In the 3-2-1, we identify three positives, two negatives, and one lingering question following South Carolina basketball’s latest win on the court.

Maybe it was because they were missing two contributors in Myles Stute and Hayden Assemian. Maybe it was because of too much tryptophan from Thanksgiving turkey. No matter the cause, Friday wasn’t pretty, but Lamont Paris’ team returned to the win column. Let’s dive into the Gamecocks’ 74-62 victory over the in-state Charleston Southern Buccaneers.

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Three Positives

1. Mike Sharavjamts
   
   Frankly, there wasn’t a whole lot of good on offense for South Carolina in this game. However, one of just a few bright spots was Mike Sharavjamts. The versatile Mongolian only took three shots from the field but was probably the team’s most important offensive player until Elijah Strong took over the scoring load late.
   
   Sharavjamts scored eight points but spent parts of each half controlling the game, playing multiple positions while running the offense from each spot. He even spent some time playing in a lineup that included nothing but other guards, meaning he was the de facto center. He logged two of his seven assists in that role.
   
   The man called “Shark” also played really nice, multi-positional defense and pulled down eight rebounds.
   
2. Kobe Knox inspired fight, and Elijah Strong stepped up
   
   The leading South Carolina scorer for most of Friday afternoon was Kobe Knox. The athletic starter began the game 6-for-6 from the field and woke up an offense that had gone over six minutes without a bucket with a layup and then a ferocious dunk.
   
   Knox also continued drawing fouls. That has been a trend for the Gamecock guard recently. Against Charleston Southern, he forced four more whistles.
   
   By the time the game had ended, Elijah Strong had the most points for South Carolina, and 20 of his 22 points came after Knox’s big dunk. After a bad first half and some change, he took over.
   
   As part of his turnaround, Strong scored seven points in a row two different times. He was especially good in the mid-range and with his back to the basket.
   
   Eli Ellis, who always fights hard, finished with a career-high nine rebounds to lead both teams.
   
3. Solid defense…most of the time
   
   Lamont Paris prides himself as a defensive coach, and for much of Friday afternoon against Charleston Southern, the defense was solid.
   
   There was a really bad stretch in the first half (more on that later), and the defense was a bit soft once they built up a decent lead, but South Carolina finished the game allowing just 36% shooting from the floor and 23% from the 3-point line.
   
   Mike Sharavjamts was good defensively, logging two blocks and two steals. He also altered a lot of shot attempts and dribble drives with his length and athleticism.

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Two Negatives

1. A really bad stretch in each half
   
   Despite playing against a far inferior opponent on Friday, South Carolina had a long stretch of the first half in which they looked like the worse team. After leading 20-9, USC blew their early lead.
   
   Brycen Blaine scored 12 points in a row for CSU, and it wasn’t just because he got hot. Defensively, the Gamecocks gave Blaine an open look at a jumper and multiple wide-open driving lanes to the basket. On the other end, Carolina had a pair of turnovers, missed three shots from the field, and missed the front end of a one-and-one free throw situation on two occasions.
   
   The bad run set the tone for the rest of the first half, especially offensively. The Gamecocks couldn’t get anything going, leading to an unnecessarily close halftime score of 30-28.
   
   In the second half, the offense went about 6:25 seconds without a bucket after an initial score in the first minute after halftime. They missed six shots in a row in that span. Two of them were blocked.
   
   Thankfully for South Carolina, the defense was a lot better during this bad stretch of offense than it was during the first-half struggle. A Kobe Knox layup followed by a posterizing dunk woke up the Gamecocks before it was too late, and Elijah Strong took over late.
   
2. Continuing offensive scuffles
   
   South Carolina hasn’t shot the ball well from outside in the last several games. In three games heading into Friday, the Gamecocks had shot under 30% from the perimeter in each contest. Against Charleston Southern, that continued with a woeful 21% effort from outside. Nordin Kapic went 2-for-4, and the rest of the team went 3-for-20.
   
   Because the shots weren’t falling, the Buccaneers left Carolina’s bigs open on the perimeter (Elijah Strong, Christ Essandoko, and Jordan Butler went 1-for-10 despite being wide open for almost all of those attempts), and CSU defended against USC’s guards driving the basketball.
   
   The offense in the post wasn’t much better than it was on the perimeter. In the first half, Carolina shot 5-for-11 on layup attempts. Then, in the second half, they went 5-for-9, which is better but not good enough. On multiple occasions, would-be Gamecock scorers were intimidated enough by Charleston Southern’s interior defense that they gave up on a scoring opportunity in the paint.
   
   Part of the problem was a lack of effective ball movement. South Carolina finished with just 10 assists for the game, and Mike Sharavjamts had seven of them.
   
   The offense has to play better, as a good team would not have allowed South Carolina to score 74 points in this game.

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One Lingering Question and What’s Next

What will be this team’s offensive identity moving forward?

Early this season, South Carolina dropped bombs from the perimeter to the tune of 14 and 16 makes. They have attempted and made fewer in every game since, including four contests in a row making worse than 30% from outside.

In three of the last four games, Elijah Strong has taken a lot of shots, including tough looks in the paint and in the mid-range. That might be an answer in small doses when the team’s outside shots aren’t falling. It doesn’t feel sustainable, though, especially when the schedule lines up with tougher opponents.

There has been intermittent success with Meechie Johnson, Eli Ellis, Mike Sharavjamts, and Kobe Knox attacking the basket. There have been some instances in which ball movement has created open cutting lanes and avenues for pump-and-drive attacks. Can any of that be the answer if shots aren’t falling?

What’s Next?

South Carolina will stay in Columbia over the weekend in preparation for a home contest against Virginia Tech. That game will be USC’s leg of the ACC/SEC Challenge. Tip-Off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 2nd. SEC Network will handle the television broadcast, while the ESPN app streams the non-conference action.

The Gamecocks are 2-0 all-time in the ACC/SEC Challenge. USC knocked off Notre Dame two seasons ago in Columbia and defeated Boston College in Chestnut Hill last year.

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