re: South Carolina 77 @ Ole Miss 74 | FINAL! 17-1! | GG Ole Miss!

Carrera also went 7-8 at the line. USC was shooting around 50% I think until those 2 started going to the FT line in the 2nd half....

It always amazes me that when we play against a zone, we start games by taking a lot of 3-ptrs. Which we aren't good at making, but especially when teams dare us to - we mostly get ours with kick-outs and un-expected, "I feel good" tries. We never do well when the opponent tells us "we dare you to make it"...

Ole Miss was missing their top rebounder and post presence guy, and another player that averages around 5 rebounds. A team that loses a major part of their physical rebounding presence WANTS you to take a lot of 3-ptrs. USC should have come out immediately in the 1st half and drive and penetrate the zone, cause fouls and scramble the defense up.

Instead we pussied-out the 1st half. Carrera got his 2nd foul 5 minutes into the game, and there went out toughness. In the 2nd half, we played with more toughness as Carrera was back in the game, and we stayed right with Ole Miss for most of the half - even before Moody got hurt - slightly out-scoring them for much of it, but we just couldn't dig out of the 10-point hole we were put in after the 1st half.

It's a shame Moody got injured in the 2nd half, but IMO had we played better in the 1st half instead of that shite where we just laid down and let Ole Miss' zone dictate to us how we would score points, then we wouldn't have needed the late-game histrionics to force overtime and win....

But another teaching tool I guess while not suffering over it. Now we're 17-1 and 4-1 in SEC play. The win is only the 2nd in 14 tries for the Gamecocks in Oxford, and now the Rebels hold a 18-17 series lead against USC....the Gamecocks have now won 2 games in a row over the Rebels, going back to last season's Marshall Henderson "WTF"-face game in the SECT....