Carolina wrapped up non-conference play nicely with a dominant 91-56 win over SC State tonight in Columbia. Darnell Porter led the Bulldogs with , while Lakeem Jackson and Brian Richardson led an ensemble performance for Carolina with 17 apiece and Sam Muldrow added a double-double.
- As the final score indicates, the team played a pretty good game tonight, particularly after about the ten-minute mark in the first half. We played tough defense (including 15 blocked shots), seemed to find a groove on offense, got plenty of offensive boards, and the shots started falling. It was a nice recovery performance after the trials of the last few weeks. Some particular things I liked about this game: Jackson driving the ball hard and shooting FTs well, Muldrow getting more involved, and Malik Cooke and Damontre Harris working the boards. I really wanted to see Harris notch his first double-digit scoring performance, but he didn't quite make it. He's becoming a more effective player, though.
- Although this team has some obvious personnel flaws on its front line, what it does have more so than in recent years is decent depth. That helped us a lot tonight as we continued to work fresh players in while SC State tired. Our full court game really started to produce later in the game for this reason.
That's a wrap on this one. Next up: SEC play begins Saturday with Vanderbilt.