South Carolina and visiting Georgia will look to end losing streaks when they meet in a Southeastern Conference clash on Saturday in Columbia, S.C.
The Gamecocks (10-7, 1-4 SEC) have lost three in a row and four of their past five games after suffering a 75-59 loss at Arkansas on Tuesday. South Carolina led 40-33 at intermission before getting outscored 42-19 in the second half to drop their fifth game by double figures this season.
South Carolina has two players averaging in double figures — Erik Stevenson with 10.8 points per game and James Reese with 10.0 — while Wildens Leveque averages a team-high 5.6 rebounds to go along with 8.9 points per game. Against Arkansas, Devin Carter led the Gamecocks with 20 points and six boards.
Georgia (5-13, 0-5) is mired in an even deeper slump. The Bulldogs are coming off an 83-60 throttling at No. 2 Auburn on Wednesday. It was the Bulldogs’ seventh straight loss and the eighth in their past nine games. Georgia is the SEC’s lone team without a league win.
The Bulldogs had no answer defensively for Auburn, which had six players score in double figures. The Tigers outrebounded Georgia 41-31 and converted 18 Bulldog turnovers into 18 points.
“We had a couple of costly turnovers and they capitalized,” Georgia coach Tom Crean said. “They do a really good job of capitalizing and they took a lot of threes, but they shot a really good percentage inside the paint and those are the issues that we’ve just got to continue to work through.”
The Bulldogs were playing against Auburn without leading scorer Kario Oquendo (13.4 points per game), who was out with a lower-body injury. He’s a game-time decision to face South Carolina, which has won its last 10 meetings with Georgia dating to 2016.
Still, South Carolina coach Frank Martin isn’t looking past the Bulldogs.
“There was a day — and I’ll use my school as an example — where coaches would see South Carolina and they’d say, ‘OK, that’s a win,’ and they were good and they moved on,” Martin said. “There’s not a team in our league where you say, ‘Alright, if I can get through this week 2-0, then we can get ready for Kentucky and Arkansas or whoever.’ That doesn’t exist right now.”
If Oquendo is sidelined, the Bulldogs will rely more heavily on Braelen Bridges, who averages 12.1 points and a team-high 6.0 rebounds per game, and Aaron Cook, who averages team highs in assists (6.1) and steals (1.4) to go along with 10.2 points per game.
–Field Level Media