Gamecock men suffer first loss of the season in 78-70 defeat to Boston

A.J. Lawson’s game-high 22 points weren’t enough on Tuesday night, as the South Carolina Gamecocks dropped their first game of the season in a 78-70 loss to Boston University.

The Gamecocks taking an inexplicable loss to what should have been an overmatched out-of-conference opponent been an unfortunate trend in the Frank Martin era, and the Terriers were this year’s beneficiary.

Boston enjoyed an uncharacteristically poor performance on defense from the Gamecocks, and although South Carolina took a 38-35 lead into halftime, it couldn’t stay in front of the Terriers in the second stanza. USC shot just 37.5% and made only one 3-pointer in the period as Boston used an 11-2 run to put the game out of reach.

Maik Kotsar (14 points, seven rebounds) and Justin Minaya (10 points) were the other standouts for South Carolina in addition to Lawson’s performance. After getting a lot of production from the bench in their previous contests, the Gamecocks’ reserves contributed just eight points against BU.

South Carolina (3-1) hosts Gardner-Webb at 7 p.m. on Friday.