After earning its first power conference victory of the season, South Carolina will face No. 18 Georgia in Southeastern Conference play Saturday afternoon in Columbia, South Carolina.
South Carolina (10-5, 1-1) built a 28-point lead and held on for a 78-68 victory at LSU on Tuesday, marking the Gamecocks’ first road conference win since March 2024. The league’s second-worst offense (80.1 points per game) shot a season-high 57.1% (12-for-21) on 3-pointers and made its first nine shots Tuesday — a field that coach Lamont Paris would like to see repeated against Georgia.
“It’s a good thing we got off to a really good start and our defense built off of that,” Paris said. “Having those two things come together at the same time is why we were able to build such a big lead. Obviously we needed all of that going down the stretch.”
Paris didn’t earn a conference win until Feb. 22 last season after losing its first 13 SEC games. Helping the Gamecocks get off to a better start this season is Boston College transfer Elijah Strong, who scored a career-high 30 points on Tuesday.
“His natural gifts are as an offensive guy,” Paris said. “He can score in different ways. He’s quite versatile. Even in the way he helps generate offense; he knows well what to do and when.”
Meechie Johnson leads South Carolina averaging 14.0 points per game, while Mike Sharavjamts and Strong add 11.6 each.
Georgia (13-2, 1-1) saw its seven-game winning streak end Tuesday with a 92-77 loss to Florida. The Bulldogs are as highly ranked as they have been since reaching No. 17 in February 2003, but they could need a win Saturday to avoid falling into the Top 25.
The Bulldogs’ chances of extending a strong start to the season took a hit Tuesday as starting center Somto Cyril was ejected for a forearm to the face of Florida’s Rueben Chinyelu, resulting in an ejection.
Cyril averages a team-leading 9.5 points and 6.1 rebounds per game but only played seven minutes against the Gators. The 6-foot-11 sophomore was not suspended by the league and will return as a much-needed low post force against the Gamecocks.
“He’s come a long way with his emotions,” Georgia coach Mike White said of Cyril. “He understands. He was depressed in the locker room at halftime and after the game. What do you do with those things? You learn from them. You have to own them and you have to take advantage of them. I have every expectation that that’s what he will do.”
In place of Cyril, forward Dylan James collected 16 points coming off the bench.
“Credit to him for his toughness, his willingness to play, his attitude,” White said of James. “He’s such a good teammate. He’s such a good culture guy. He played hard as hell and he’s very, very smart.”
Jeremiah Wilkinson (17.2) leads Georgia in scoring, but the Cal transfer ended with a season-low two points in Gainesville. Blue Cain adds 15.1 and Marcus Millender scores 12.0 per game for the nation’s highest scoring offense (97.9 points per game).
–Field level media
