Three things to watch for as South Carolina opens play in Greenbrier Tip-Off

South Carolina will be in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, to take part in the second-annual Greenbrier Tip-Off this weekend. The Gamecocks will open up play on Friday against Butler at 2 p.m. on CBS Sports Network.

Here are three things to watch for before all the action begins at The Greenbrier Resort.

🏀 Attention: GamecockCentral is at the game to provide updates. Follow along on the The Insiders Forum (beginning approximately 30 minutes before tip-off). Don’t miss any of the action!

First real test against quality competition

South Carolina has handled its business through four games, winning by an average of 18 points per game. This doesn’t come as a surprise, given that the schedule has been fairly light. However, this weekend will be the first real test against better competition to see what this team is truly made of.

Butler is ranked at No. 62 in the KenPom rankings. The Gamecocks will then face Northwestern on Sunday evening, and the Wildcats are ranked even higher as the 46th-best team in KenPom. These will be two of the four games that they play against KenPom top 100 teams in non-conference play. They’ll also face Virginia Tech (No. 59) and Clemson (No. 27) in December.

“Oh, it’s a great test. We have a good schedule, and to be able to go to an event like Greenbrier, play against really good teams, just see what we’re made of against high-major teams, see what we need to work on,” Eli Ellis said. “If we’re going to be able to really do a lot of things this year, I think after this weekend, we’re going to show that we belong on the stage.”

So what would be a good outcome from this weekend? Ideally, it would be great for South Carolina to go 2-0 and pick up two quality wins. According to WarrenNolan, Butler would be a Quad 2 game, while Northwestern would be a Quad 1, which is what the Gamecocks could use to boost their resume and garner some attention. More realistically, finding a way to split the two games would feel acceptable.

However, for head coach Lamont Paris, while he’s confident going into this weekend, he’s not really concerned about who the opponents are or what potential wins could mean. It’s more about continuing to grow and develop into a good team as SEC play begins in January.

“Certainly, you want to win those games and then root for those teams as they go play everyone else. But it’s not a make-or-break situation by any stretch of the imagination,” he said. “Once we go there, just let our hair down and let it rip against some good teams that are really well coached. And I think that’s the one thing. If we look at our entire schedule and our non-conference schedule, we go against some really good coaches with a variety of different styles. And so I think that all works to help prepare you for your conference.”

Join GamecockCentral now for $1 your first week and enjoy a complimentary year of The Athletic – included with your membership.

High-scoring affair?

The Gamecocks have gotten off to a strong start offensively, scoring 80-plus points in their first four games, which is something they haven’t done since 1970-71. While it’s early, they’ve looked like a much-improved offense compared to any of Paris’ other years in Columbia, averaging 85.5 points per game.

This level of scoring, as long as it continues, should give them a chance to win any game. Especially on nights when the three-point shots are falling. But going into the first game of the weekend, South Carolina could be in for a high-scoring matchup with Butler.

The Bulldogs have been even better offensively, averaging 95.8 points through their first four games of the season. Granted, three of those games were against KenPom teams ranked 312th or worse. They did score 85 points against SMU, a top 50 KenPom squad, last time out, but lost by two. So they can certainly match South Carolina punch for punch from that standpoint.

Much like the Gamecocks, Butler is a team full of shooters with four players averaging double figures. Finley Bizjack leads the way with 15 points per game, while Michael Ajayi is right behind him, averaging 14.8 points. As a team, the Bulldogs are shooting nearly 50 percent from the field and pulling down 46.3 rebounds per game. So South Carolina is going to have to be on its A-game to win this one.

Imagine if South Carolina plays like it did Tuesday with better three-point shooting…

The way in which South Carolina beat Radford on Tuesday was interesting to say the least. For the second straight game, the three-point shooting wasn’t great, only making its shots at a 28 percent clip, and Meechie Johnson only had two points. Yet the Gamecocks won by a season-best 29 points.

So how did they win that game by so much without those two critical factors in their favor? For one, they controlled the game from start to finish and scored 48 points in the paint and went 27-of-34 on shots inside the arc, good for 79.4 percent on the night. They also grabbed 40 rebounds, 33 of which were on the defensive end, compared to Radford, which only had 16.

The Gamecocks were solid defensively, too, by holding the Highlanders to 58 points and a season-low 30.8 percent shooting from the floor. They also forced 14 turnovers and scored 20 points off those miscues.

Again, that all happened against Radford, which is still a respectable opponent for being a Quad 4 game. Now, just imagine what could happen when South Carolina plays like that, plus gets hot from beyond the arc. It would be a tough recipe for any team to try and stop. If that’s how the Gamecocks play this weekend at The Greenbrier, it could be a fun trip for them.

The Insiders Forum: Discuss South Carolina basketball!