South Carolina's comeback falls short on last-second shot by Northwestern in Greenbrier Tip-Off

After Friday’s loss to Butler, South Carolina knew changes needed to be made before its next game. In what way? Play with a lot more physicality after being severely outrebounded.

That was one change the Gamecocks hoped would come on Sunday against Northwestern. But there was another change made, one that almost nobody could’ve seen coming.

As long as head coach Lamont Paris has been at South Carolina, he’s always worn his trademark quarterzip. Black, garnet, white, the color doesn’t matter — he wears one every single game.

But when Paris took the floor at Colonial Hall for the Greenbrier Tip-Off finale, he donned a black Gamecock polo. It was a sight to behold, considering how rare this was for him, but it ultimately didn’t change the team’s fortunes in a 79-77 loss to the Wildcats.

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South Carolina (4-2) played catch-up for most of the night after an 8-0 run put Northwestern ahead by as many as seven points late in the first half. The Gamecocks cut that deficit down to two heading into the break, but it was still a battle for them to jump back in front in the second half.

The lingering issue that prevented this from happening was the team’s continuous struggles from three-point range. Every time they got within one possession, they could never pull ahead due to missed shots at crucial times. Then Northwestern would make a shot on the other end to pull further ahead. That was the story for most of the night.

That was until the final four minutes of the game. After being down by 12 points, South Carolina came to life and went on a 13-1 run to tie the game with under two minutes to go. That run was mainly headlined by Meechie Johnson, who forced a pair of turnovers and scored seven straight points.

Johnson struggled to hit his shots throughout the night, but when it came down to crunch time, he rose to the occasion. The fifth-year guard finished with 15 points on 6-of-17 shooting.

However, in the end, the comeback efforts wouldn’t be enough. Northwestern’s Arrinten Page made the go-ahead layup with 0.8 seconds remaining to hand the Gamecocks a brutal loss to close out their stay at The Greenbrier.

Up next: South Carolina will have a few days off from game action with Thanksgiving this week. The Gamecocks will be back at Colonial Life Arena on Friday when they take on Charleston Southern at 4 p.m. on SEC Network+.

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