Gamecock men fall to Tennessee 85-42

Jan 9, 2023 - 2:11 PM

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The Gamecocks drop their second SEC contest in a row to Tennessee 85-42. This drops South Carolina to 7-8 on the season and 0-2 in conference. Also, this was the first loss that the Gamecocks took at Colonial Life Arena this season.

To keep things short and sweet, Tennessee outplayed the Gamecocks in every form possible in the game of basketball. From the jump, the Volunteers had the upper hand on Carolina. It was going to take a miracle for the Gamecocks to pull off a victory in the first place. However, I don’t think anyone expected it to be this bad. This is the worst loss South Carolina has taken in the past decade.

Olivier Nkamhoua led the Volunteers with 21 points on a perfect 10/10 shooting from the field. Nkamhoua also added a team high 10 rebounds. Santiago Vescovi, Jonas Aidoo, and Josiah-Jordan James also put up double figure points for Tennessee.

There isn’t much good to say about South Carolina’s performance in this game. Meechie Johnson Jr. had 19 points, but that about wraps up everything positive about the Gamecocks this game. The team just looked dead on the court and unmotivated to play basketball.

The turnovers continue to be a huge part of the failure of this Gamecocks squad. They had 18 tonight, which lead to countless opportunities for Tennessee to capitalize on. 18 turnovers is also a season high for the Gamecocks.

GG Jackson played the absolute worst game of his young career. Jackson did not even score a single point, shooting 0-8 from the field including 4 turnovers. This type of play just isn’t acceptable for any Power 5 college basketball team.

South Carolina will attempt to bounce back against Kentucky on the 10th.