Three things to watch for as South Carolina faces Northwestern in Greenbrier Tip-Off

The first loss of the season is out of the way. Now, South Carolina will have its first chance to respond.

The Gamecocks (4-1), who lost 79-72 to Butler on Friday, will take on Northwestern in the final game of the Greenbrier Tip-Off on Sunday evening. Tip-off is at 5 p.m. on CBS Sports Network.

Here are three things to watch for as South Carolina closes out its stay at The Greenbrier.

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Preaching more physicality. But will that be the case?

After Friday’s loss, Lamont Paris and the players all agreed that South Carolina got outphysicaled by Butler. That was already clear just by the look of the box score. But hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth added some important perspective into how things were.

“I think (Butler) kicked our rear ends physically,” Paris said. “Which hopefully will be good for us and incite some changes in mindset, which will incite some changes to what we’re doing physically, which will hopefully lead to some different results.”

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It was a rough day on the glass as the Gamecocks were outrebounded 48-29. They allowed 15 offensive rebounds to the Bulldogs, which directly led to 23 second-chance points. In a seven-point loss, that’s going to be costly.

The easy solution would be to make more shots, and rebounding becomes less of a necessity as a result. Two things can be true at once. South Carolina only shot 40.3 percent from the field by way of missing a lot of three-point shots and layups. If more of those go in, it’s a much different game.

The real question going into Sunday’s game will be whether a change was made from a physicality standpoint. Northwestern also got dominated in the rebounding battle against Virginia on Friday. So it’s entirely possible that Butler was a bad matchup for South Carolina and will fare better in the next game. But it won’t matter unless the team comes out playing tougher and with more effort in the paint.

Bounce back opportunity for Myles Stute

It’s been a tough start to the year for Myles Stute, who’s now back after missing most of last season with a blood clot in his lower left leg. The fifth-year senior started on Friday and finished with zero points on 0-of-4 shooting from three-point range in 25 minutes. He finished with an abysmal -14 plus-minus.

Through five games, Stute is averaging seven points per game on 33.3 percent shooting from the field and a career-low 24.1 percent from three. For being one of the team’s better three-point shooters, especially from the corner, he hasn’t played like it yet this year.

Paris compared Stute’s early struggles to those of Klay Thompson from a few years ago in his final years with the Golden State Warriors when he struggled to consistently make shots. His thought process behind that comparison was if someone like Thompson can go through tough stretches, anyone can start off a season poorly. But he’s confident Stute will get out of his funk and start making shots again.

“Myles is a maniacal worker,” Paris said. “If you’ve ever been around him at all, you’ll know that. He’ll find his way through it.”

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It’s also fair to ask why Paris will continue to count on him in spite of his struggles. It’s not just because he believes in him to eventually get it going. There are other parts of his game that lend himself to being a contributor.

“He’s got to continue to try to be a good defender that stays in front of the ball and knows our rules and talks and communicates, that is uplifting with his worries, and to his teammates, understand the general landscape of what we’re trying to do offensively, be a good cutter, initiate offense by way of his pass,” Paris said. “Like, he still needs to do those things. As long as he does those things, he’s allowed to shoot the ball poorly and still play a significant amount. But when it starts to bleed to other parts of your game, you need to take a little breather and potentially take a look at mixing some things up.”

Chance to head home with an early signature win

South Carolina missed out on a chance for a quality win against Butler. But it will have a chance to get an arguably better win against Northwestern, which ranks 46th in KenPom.

Since the Wildcats are a top 50 team, and this game is at a neutral site, it could very well be a Quad 1 game for the Gamecocks. With how light the non-conference slate is, aside from other games against Virginia Tech and Clemson, there won’t be many opportunities for good wins before SEC play starts. So while it’s early, it would be big for them to find a way to win this game to really boost their résumé.

That’ll be easier said than done, though. South Carolina comes into the game as 5.5-point underdogs and will have its work cut out. Northwestern suffered an 83-78 loss to Virginia on Friday, so the Wildcats are beatable, but it’s going to be tricky.

If you did a blind test, you’d probably guess Virginia lost by shooting only 38 percent overall and 21 percent from three. Northwestern shot much better at a 47 percent clip and 44 percent from three. Yet somehow it lost. Much like South Carolina, though, the rebounds were the biggest issue as the Cavaliers had nearly 50 rebounds.

It also helped that Virginia went 30-for-36 at the free throw line, while Northwestern went 17-for-24. So if the Gamecocks can win these two specific battles, they should have a good chance of winning. If not, it may be a lot tougher to come out on top.

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