USC drops second game in Charleston despite spirited effort. What went wrong

Lamont Paris needed to see more fire.

After the first-year South Carolina head coach was critical of his team’s competitive spirit and body language to open the Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic, the Gamecocks took the court Friday night with noticeably more zest.

Playing cleaner, tighter, more disciplined basketball at TD Arena, the Gamecocks (2-2) battled Davidson in a much-closer affair than the night before. Still, the Gamecocks came up short, falling to the Wildcats 69-60.

“I thought we competed better today than we did yesterday,” Paris said. “I felt really good about that honestly. Had some great energy from some guys off the bench ... our overall level of competitiveness right from the get-go was much higher.

“We have to get better. There’s no question about that. This is not a finished product. It wouldn’t be a finished product if we were 4-0.”

The result was a clear step up over Thursday’s 32-point loss to Colorado State, and the Gamecocks will try to finish the tournament on a positive note Sunday.

Here’s what we learned from Friday’s loss.

Davidson’s Foster Loyer takes over

Entering Friday, senior Wildcats guard Foster Loyer led Davidson with 22.3 points per game and a team-high 14 3-pointers.

The Gamecocks clearly honed in on him in the first half, holding him to just one field goal on four attempts and forcing his Wildcat teammates to take shots. But the Gamecocks could only keep Loyer quiet for so long.

Early in the second half, the 6-foot, 175-pound guard caught fire from the perimeter, and the Gamecocks could do nothing to stop him. Loyer sunk all four of his first four 3-point attempts in the half, finishing with 16 points.

“I anticipated that he was going to be really aggressive,” Paris said of Loyer. “He’s a good player, and they ran a bunch of stuff to him. He took a lot of shots, and we were working hard to chase him around.”

As a whole, 3-point shooting was a difference maker for the Wildcats, who made six second-half 3-pointers en route to winning the game. In comparison, the Gamecocks only attempted seven 3-pointers in the second half.

Cleaner basketball, but not enough

Paris described Thursday’s loss to Colorado State as “a perfect storm.” The Gamecocks’ passing was poor and at times careless; key players like Hayden Brown and Josh Gray got into foul trouble early; and Colorado State scored a whopping 54 points in the paint — one more point than USC had for the entire game.

The Gamecocks showed improvement in most of those areas Friday, showing more care with the ball and more of an organized attack on offense, although the team’s 16 turnovers still didn’t sit well with Paris after the game.

USC was also stingier in the paint than it was against the Rams, forcing the Wildcats to take deeper shots. Gray and Brown staying out of foul trouble were both in key in that regard, with Brown tallying three blocks and Gray adding another. The problem for USC was that the Wildcats proved proficient from deep.

For the Gamecocks, starting shooting guard Chico Carter Jr. regrouped after a poor shooting effort against the Rams. Carter sunk four first-half 3-pointers and finished with a team-high 26 points.

The Gamecocks finished neck-and-neck with the Rams in most statistical categories, except at the 3-point line.

Injury update

Starting point guard Meechie Johnson, a transfer from Ohio State, has battled a right ankle injury since the opening game of the season against S.C. State. Though he played in the subsequent two games, he struggled to make much of an impact.

The Gamecocks rested Johnson with that same ankle injury Friday. He was wearing street clothes and a walking boot on his right foot. A team spokesperson labeled Johnson as day-to-day.

Paris said after the game that Johnson didn’t feel like he could play on the ankle Friday, and Paris added that he didn’t know if Johnson would be available for Sunday’s game against Furman.

Next four USC MBB games

• Sunday: vs. Furman at Charleston Classic, 10:30 a.m. (ESPN News)

• Nov. 25: vs. USC Upstate, 4 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)

• Nov. 30: at George Washington, 9 p.m. (CBS Sports Network)

• Dec. 3: at Georgetown, 12 p.m. (FS1)