A low-team attack court in South Carolina was tasked with facing Missouri 6-10, a 260-pound senior center Jeremiah Tilmon on Tuesday night and it didn’t end well for Gamecocks (3-4, 1-2).
Devoid of Alanzo Frink for the fourth game in a row and Jalyn McCreary for the second time in a row due to the COVID-19 health and safety protocols, Gamecocks were only 6-10 Wildens Leveque and 6-6 wings Justin Minaya and Trey Anderson to defend one of the best strikers in the league. Tillman scored 19 points from 8 of 11 shots with 10 rebounds in a final score of 81 to 70 in favor of the 19th place in the Tigers ranking. Tilmon helped lead his team to wins by points in the paint (40-32) and rebounds (37-35).
“I thought when we played small we fought him”, head coach Frank Martin said post-game. “When Wildens was in the game, he got out of the way and gave up four dunks. He’s really been playing really well for them lately. I thought we fought him, I really did. He’s really big, at the end of the day “He caught us a few times, marking us. When we were little, we fought him. Wildens was the guy who couldn’t resist. That was really disappointing.”
The Gamecocks, in a quick turnaround after Saturday’s loss to LSU, failed to gather enough offensives to keep pace with a Tigers team that hit 58 percent of the field. Missouri led 18 in the second half, and Carolina managed to keep it competitive, but was maintained at 39 percent by a Missouri team that came in second in the SEC’s opposing field goal percentage (39.4 percent). Gamecocks’ free throw problems continued, as they hit just 42 percent (8 out of 19), while Tigers hit 67 percent (20 out of 30).
“It’s hard to go on the road and beat a qualified team when your defense was as bad as ours today,” said Martin. “If you’re not going to defend, it’s better to hit offensively and we hit 8 of 19 on the line and 8 of 28 on 3 and 27 on 70 in the game. I didn’t care about some of the pictures we took, but you have to. In the last seven minutes at LSU we didn’t score a basket and we started the game today and in the first five minutes we didn’t score a basket. We have to defend better and when we shoot we have to do it.
Minaya (10 points) and Keyshawn Bryant (19 pts) also had double-digit points, but the Gamecocks did not have much production from the defense duo AJ Lawson and Jermaine Couisnard. The pre-season All-SEC guards combined one point and nine wrong shots in the first half and finished with 11 points out of 4 out of 21 shots. Lawson ranked fourth in the SEC in scoring (18.5 ppg) entering the contest. This marked the second game in a row Couisnard was held below 10 points.
“AJ has to do better than 2 to 9 and Jermaine has to do better than 2 to 12 and both went 1 to 6 on the three-point line,” said Martin. “If that’s how these guys are going to score, then we can’t play fast and I have to reevaluate how we’re playing, because maybe we can’t make that many moves.
“If we don’t get better games by (AJ) and Jermaine on the road, it will be difficult to win those games. AJ had an incredible first half at LSU and then disappeared in the second half. Jermaine didn’t play well at LSU, so we couldn’t finish the game. We started today to play against another Top 20 team and many similar businesses. I’m not calling players, it’s just the end result. When Sindarius (Thornwell) and PJ (Dozier) we were on our team, if those two players played well we would win. If they didn’t play well, it would be a fight. Well, when AJ and Jermaine play well, we have a chance to win. If they don’t, it will be a struggle. “
Anderson had his best game in a Gamecocks uniform. The second year, which averaged just 4.4 minutes in 12 college games in his career, scored 24 minutes, 17 points and five rebounds.
“At the end of last year he was really starting to practice better,” said Martin. “This year has started and I should have put him in fourth place since the beginning of the year, but I left him in third and he is better able to play in fourth now. We decided to play with four perimeter guys as much as possible now and he has a chance to play. Part of that was understaffed and, to his credit, he played well when we kicked him out. Now he has to improve defensively. “
Gamecocks have lost consecutive SEC disputes. They now return home for consecutive home games, on Saturday at noon against Auburn and next Wednesday (January 27) at 7pm against Georgia. Both games are scheduled to take place on ESPN2.