Reviewing Georgia Southern at South Carolina

Darrin Horn's Gamecocks hosted the Georgia Southern Eagles tonight, winning 90-66. The Eagles gave us a run for our money in the first half and deserve credit for coming to an SEC venue ready to give their all. The second half was all ours, though, and in the end we got another convincing victory. Dominique Archie led the way with 18, Devan Downey added 14, and Ben Drayton led the Eagles with 15.

Here are a few thoughts on the game:

• Kentucky needed a game winner from John Wall to take down Miami University tonight, while Mississippi State was blown out in their opener against Rider University. It may not mean much at this point in the season, but the facts so far are that the Gamecocks have looked better than the two teams that most have tabbed to win their respective divisions.
• We got 31 points off the bench tonight. That's promising and demonstrates that the notion that this team has a better bench than last year's is true. In particular, I think Ramon Galloway is going to be a bigger contributor than we thought he would be.
  
• On the negative side of things, Mike Holmes went a staggering 2-8 from the stripe tonight, and the 'Cocks on the whole went 64%, missing an incredible 16 free throws. It's really a shame this group of players can't shoot free throws better, because we would be a significantly better team if we did.
• Another negative: we committed 24 turnovers in this game. This hurt us early on. We'll need to play smarter against better competition.

Well, that wraps this one up. Next up is La Salle at the Charleston Classic. Stay tuned, because this is when I think we'll really get to know this team better. Winning that tourney would be a great way to kick off the season.