South Carolina at Tennessee: A Quick Recap
by Gamecock Man on Feb 9, 2012 12:32 AM EST
in South Carolina Gamecocks Basketball
Email
PrintThe Gamecocks opened the game promisingly, but after a strong late-first-half surge, the Tennessee Volunteers for the most part controlled tonight's game in Knoxville, winning 69-57. The Gamecocks were able to cut the lead to three fairly late in the game, but Tennessee closed strongly. Bruce Ellington led Carolina with 12 points, while Skylar McBee led UT with 18.
The story on the stat line was that Tennessee shot 50% to Carolina's 33%. The silver lining to that sad tale is that this wasn't a game where Carolina didn't work the post or have any offensive strategy; it was just a game where we shot poorly. Damontre Harris took seven shots, which is what we want from him. Unfortunately, he only made one, which is far less than what he typically makes. The same goes for Malik Cooke--got his looks, but didn't make enough of them. The guys just didn't step up to the plate from the field tonight, and Tennessee did. That's all I have for this one. Small victories.
Carolina travels to Arkansas this weekend.
3 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Skylar McBee
looks like he walked off the set of Dazed and Confused II . Put him in short-shorts and you could time-warp him back to 1974.
My thoughts on the game:
1. Despite UT’s unexpectedly good perimeter shooting (or our unexpectedly bad perimeter defense), we could have still won this game. Our back court played well – Ellington had a solid night with 12 points, Leonard added 11 and Williams 10; we shot a respectable 43.8% from the arc. You’d think that would be a recipe for success.
2. But the real difference in the game was the complete lack of productivity within 2’-3’ of the basket … Gill was ice-cold 0-6, Cooke, 2-6 and Harris 1-7 – and most of those were from the paint – including post-moves and put-back attempts Tennessee defended and boarded well – give credit where it’s due – but most of our misses were just flat out poor shots that coulda, shoulda, woulda dropped. We easily left 10-12 points on the floor, and that was the margin of defeat.
3. So much for us wanting to go the stripe more – we were 12-19 from the line (63%), and some of those makes were later in the game after UT had re-extended the lead.
4. Gill looked sluggish, lost and discombobulated. Maybe he’s hit a bit of a February wall – it happens.
5. Damontre has to play smarter. I’m not just talking about the poor-shot selection (or bad luck or whatever), but he continues to pick up fouls at a machine-gun pace.
Here's a health, Carolina, forever to thee! UNIVERSITAS CAROLIN MERID. 1801 Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros (Ovid)
Must have
more than 2 or 3 players to play reasonably well to have a chance to beat anyone. Leonard and Williams were productive in their shooting, but Cooke, Ellington, Harris and Gill were not. We cannot expect to win unless most of our guys play well. They don’t have to play great even, just well. And we didn’t have enough of that last night.
Arkansas is a tough place for anyone to win, so I’m not optimistic for Saturday. Hope I’m wrong.
Very ugly games for Harris and Cooke.
Positive thing is that Leonard seems to be settling in a little bit.
Garnet and Black Attack: A Blog by and for Gamecocks Fans.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on Garnet And Black Attack
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
