Malik Cooke scored 17 points Saturday
The USC basketball team had a chance Saturday to build on the momentum of a close win over Georgia Wednesday, a chance to put together back-to-back SEC wins for the first time this season, a chance to show legitimate progress. Instead they reverted to the all too familiar script of futility in a 68-58 home loss to LSU.
LSU shot 49 percent from the floor, including a scorching 57 percent in the Tigers 43 point second half. LSU also out rebounded USC 36 to 23, and had a 12 to 5 advantage on the offensive glass. The rebounding woes were especially bothersome to Gamecocks coach Darrin Horn.
AUDIO: Darrin Horn postgame interview
“We only have five offensive rebounds and when you look down the list at the people we need to rebound the basketball, they don’t have offensive rebounds. When those kind of things happen, again, it’s going to be tough.”
Horn said a technical foul call on Brenton Williams with 11:37 left in the game took some life out of his team. Williams broke free for a dunk that cut the lead to three, but was whistled for the tech for hanging on the rim. The Tigers made the free throw and scored on the next possession to stretch the lead back to six. The Gamecocks never got any closer the rest of the game.
“The technical was called, I think that affected our guys after they went and scored a couple of times after that,” Horn said. “Ultimately that’s an excuse, but that was tough for us to overcome.”
Horn said he wasn’t watching Williams after the dunk and didn’t know about the technical until the ref came over to tell him. From the media seating it didn’t look like Williams hung on the rim for an unordinary about of time after the play. When asked about the play in the postgame press conference LSU coach Trent Johnson said after the game he is in favor of letting college kids be college kids.
Malik Cooke scored 17 points to lead the Gamecock scoring attack. He was the only player to reach double digits in the scoring column. Anthony Gill finished with nine points and Damontre Harries had eight.
AUDIO: Anthony Gill and Malik Cooke postgame interview
This loss drops USC to 10-16 overall and 2-10 in the SEC. Seven of those ten conference losses have been by double digits. This is the 15th time in 21 seasons that the Gamecocks have had ten or more league losses.
Said Horn: “We gotta play better. Period. We gotta coach better and we gotta play better.
Horn’s solution to turn things around is sounds simple enough, but if it hasn’t happened by this point in the season it’s hard to figure it will now.
USC is back on the road next week with a Wednesday night matchup at Vanderbilt. Vandy won the game in Columbia, 67-57 on January 10th.
