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Three things to watch for as South Carolina travels to Clemson for rivalry showdown

imageby: Jack Veltri8 hours agojacktveltri

South Carolina will hit the road for what will be its first true road game of the season when it takes on in-state rival Clemson on Tuesday. Tip-off is at 7 p.m. on ESPN2 from Littlejohn Coliseum.

Here are three things to watch for before the Gamecocks (7-3) tip off against the Tigers. 

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Debuting a new uniform

When the Gamecocks take the floor on Tuesday, they’ll be rocking a brand-new uniform, which was revealed on social media on Monday afternoon.

It’s an all-black look with a block “CAROLINA” logo and numbers on the front of the jersey. The black shorts have a white trim at the bottom with a big palmetto tree logo on the side.

Compared to the other uniforms in the rotation, this one is fairly plain without a lot going on, which some may prefer for its simplicity. It’s unclear how often the team will wear the new uniform, but its debut will still be something to keep an eye on heading into this matchup.

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Last chance to get a quality win before SEC play

The story of the season so far is that South Carolina has beaten all of the teams it’s supposed to beat on the schedule. However, in the games against better competition, AKA the high-major teams, it remains winless on the year in non-conference play with losses to Butler, Northwestern, and Virginia Tech.

With three games to go before SEC play begins, the Gamecocks will have one more chance to get a good win on their resume before then. That said, it will have to come against the best team that they’ll face in the non-con slate. Sitting at 8-3, Clemson is ranked 30th overall in KenPom with two top-100 wins.

The Tigers are an interesting bunch since they don’t have one primary scoring threat, at least not yet. Their leading scorer is RJ Godfrey, who’s averaging 11.9 points per game on 67.6 percent shooting. He’s also the team leader in rebounds and blocks. Four other players are averaging between 8-10 points.

Clemson is already plenty battle-tested this year, having gone up against two top 15 teams in No. 12 Alabama (in Tuscaloosa) and No. 10 BYU (in New York City at Madison Square Garden), but lost both games by a combined nine points. Its only other loss came on the road to Georgetown, which is ranked outside the KenPom top 100 at No. 103 overall.

So this won’t be an easy game for the Gamecocks, especially since they’ll have to go on the road. But if they can find a way to win, it would not only be another rivalry win for head coach Lamont Paris, but it would be the signature win that this team desperately needs at this point in the season.

What is South Carolina’s motivation level for this game?

It’s a crazy question to even ask, but it needs to be addressed, given the way the team’s last game went and what Paris had to say afterwards. South Carolina escaped with a 71-55 win over The Citadel this past Saturday and only built a double-digit point lead with four minutes left in the game. 

Then, after the game, Paris was fairly critical of his team, believing they were unprepared and weren’t ready to play. That would be reflected in how close the game was, plus how abysmal the Gamecocks shot overall. They finished at a 42.4 percent clip and missed their first 19 three-point attempts before going 3-for-23 (13 percent) to end the game.

The only excuse you could really make was that it was final exam week for the players. However, there have been a lot of excuses already made throughout the season, and the schedule is only going to get tougher from here. So it’s fair to question how motivated South Carolina will be for the Clemson game after what happened last time out. We’ll find out later on Tuesday night.

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