COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina had its way with the North Carolina A&T men's basketball team in the paint and on the glass in a 91-54 win at Colonial Life Arena Tuesday night. The Gamecock's performance was so dominant, Alexander quickly wanted to turn his team's attention to January 3, 10 and 12.
“This game's over,” said Alexander who faced the Gamecocks for the 10th time in his career. “We've got three very important home games coming up. We'll start preparing for a very good Cal State Bakersfield team tomorrow and then we have two conference games after that. But we can't dwell on this.”
On Jan. 3 at 7 p.m., at Corbett Sports Center, The Aggies will host a Bakersfield team it lost to in California two years ago. They will then host Savannah State (Jan. 10) and S.C. State (Jan. 12) in the coming weeks. The Aggies dropped to 2-13 on Tuesday and will be looking for their first win over a Division I and or conference opponent over the next two weeks.
On Tuesday, Bruce Beckford led the Aggies with 14 points and seven rebounds. The Gamecocks placed five players in double figures led by 6-foot-11 center Laimonas Chatkevicius who finished with 14 points and nine rebounds on 5-for-6 shooting.
The Gamecocks (8-3) won their sixth straight by shooting 54.7 percent and outrebounding the Aggies 41-20.
“They dominated us physically, especially on the boards,” said Alexander who also saw his team outscored 42-14 in the paint. “That's something I've been really hard on our bigs about. This is the kind of competition you want to learn to play against. But they were just unbelievable on the boards.”
USC started working toward its decisive rebounding advantage early. The Gamecocks grabbed six offensive rebounds in the first six minutes of the game. An offensive board and putback by Chatkevicius gave USC a 10-2 lead at the 16:31 mark of the first half. Chatkevicius then grabbed a defensive board and came to the offensive end and hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key.
After a Jerome Simmons baseline jumper made it a 13-4 game, Duane Notice took advantage of an Aggies turnover and knocked another three to give USC a 16-4 lead with 14:38 to play in the first half. The lead never went under double figures again as the Ga0mecocks led 47-16 at the half.
“South Carolina is a tenacious defensive team and their defensive intensity took us out of anything we tried to do. It was hard to simulate in practice the way they take away passing lanes,” said Alexander. “It took us a while to figure out what we could do. I thought our guys worked extremely hard in the second half.”
The Aggies did score 38 points and shoot 43.7 percent in the second half after shooting just 20 percent in the first half. It is something they can build on for January 3, 10 and 12.
