After suffering one of their most frustrating losses of the season this past weekend the Florida Gators will have an opportunity to bounce back Wednesday when they take on the South Carolina Gamecocks.
In losing to Auburn the Gators fell to 5-2 in SEC play, tying Arkansas and Kentucky. The surprise Texas A&M Aggies now hold the top spot at 6-1 while Florida will try to stay in touch. They’ll have every opportunity to do so when they take on South Carolina who currently sits 13th in the standings at 2-5, where they are trying to climb out of the league’s basement. Facing significant NIL challenges the Gamecocks didn’t make a ton of noise when it came to roster building and the preseason SEC poll saw them picked to finish dead last. In year four of the Lamont Paris era the Gamecocks have shown some fight and the ability to outperform the talent on the court, but being so outgunned in the NIL department has made consistently winning a major challenge.
So far the Gamecocks are 11-9 on the season and 2-5 in the SEC, gritting out a couple of wins that have kept them from the bottom spot of the league. Their resilience has also been on display in a few of their losses as they were able to play Vanderbilt respectably and only lose to Auburn by 4 a week a half ago, just as the Tigers were gaining steam.
This was a sharp improvement from non-conference play where things did not go very well. South Carolina played four high-major opponents, all teams picked to finish in the bottom half of their leagues–and lost all four. They also had a near-miss where they just edged out an overtime win over Southern Miss, though they avoided disaster. In their most recent contest the Gamecocks got blasted by the surging Texas A&M Aggies 92-69, and Florida will be another tough test.
Something that speaks to what South Carolina is like as a team is the fact that they are currently 83rd in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric and 82nd in adjusted defensive efficiency–they don’t have any glaring holes, they aren’t terrible at anything–they just don’t have the high end talent to be really good in any one area.
Leading the way in scoring for the Gamecocks is Meechie Johnson, someone who has executed the unthinkable and done a double boomerang transfer–by this, I mean he started his career at Ohio State, then transferred to South Carolina, then boomerang transferred back to Ohio State, and now, you guessed it–he transferred back to South Carolina. Throughout his career he has always been someone who has been decently productive but hasn’t been known as a winning player, and this is being tested once again. He is averaging 15.7 points and 4.3 assists per game shouldering a large part of the offensive load, and when the Gamecocks need someone to go and create a bucket he’s often the guy. A physical downhill driver, Johnson can draw a lot of fouls and the Gators will need to avoid giving him easy opportunities at the line.
A surprise piece that has been productive is Mike Sharavjamts, known as “Mongolian Mike” as he hails from Ulaanbaatar and is one of the most prominent Mongolian players of all time. Sharavjamts was a decent player at Dayton and San Francisco before going to Utah last season where he was a starter but struggled to contribute offensively, though that element of his game has been unlocked in Columbia. A 6’9” forward often playing in the mid-post area, Sharavjamts is averaging 11.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 2.8 assists, giving the Gamecocks some secondary playmaking.
One familiar face playing a big role is Myles Stute who spent three years at Vanderbilt before transferring to South Carolina where he has now been for three years–using injury waivers to get to his sixth year of action. The 6’7” forward has never been a major offensive performer but has always been one of the best defenders in the league who is comfortable doing the dirty work without much recognition, and while his 7.8 points per game won’t jump off the page–coaches around the league all sing his praises when it comes to toughness and defense.
As if it wasn’t hard enough for South Carolina to compete in the SEC with such a reduced NIL budget, they have also had some bad injury luck. Freshman Eli Ellis was providing a spark at 9.9 points per game right out of the gate, but he has missed the last several weeks, as has 7’0”, 280 pound behemoth Christ Essandoko and 6’8”, 240 pound Nordin Kapic–leaving the Gamecocks damaged in both their scoring and size depth.
With some missing pieces in the frontcourt, 6’8”, 250 pound Elijah Strong has been playing a lot of minutes at the 5, though only averaging 2.6 rebounds per game. South Carolina is going to be both undersized and without depth in the frontcourt which could present major challenges against the Gators, and Florida’s bigs will be looking to have a much better performance after what they did against Auburn.
For Florida, coming off a difficult loss where they didn’t play well, there isn’t much more the doctor could have ordered than a matchup with a team near the bottom of the league who is battling numerous injuries. This is their chance to get right, and they cannot take it for granted if they want to stay near the top of the league.
Florida and South Carolina will have the late tip off on Wednesday, January 28th at 9 PM ET and it will be televised on SEC Network.