For a variety of reasons, basketball is the most difficult of the Big Four North American sports in which to notch a road win. Mercurial performances between home and away games are the norm as often as not. (FWIW, the most recent data from last January pegged the chances of picking up a road win at 31%). That’s why teams like Indiana and UCLA can get pimped in Lincoln by the thoroughly average Cornhuskers, and then that same Nebraska team can lose by 37 to Michigan State (which actually happened this year). Teams often stand on their head at home and are able to score seemingly-improbable upsets.

But fresh off a defenestration of No. 12 Oklahoma that was so thorough it would make Russian oil tycoons nervous, the No. 5 Crimson Tide travel to South Carolina to face one of (perhaps the) most baffling team on its SEC road schedule. Because these ‘Cocks can play well enough to beat 12-3 Clemson, yet are simultaneously bad enough to lose four games with the 271st ranked SOS, including to North Florida (7-8, No. 217). And do both at home.

Let’s take a look at USCe and what the Tide can expect to see Wednesday when it opens SEC road play.

Tale of the Tape: No. 74 South Carolina (10-4) vs No. 5 Alabama (12-2)

Preliminary Spread (certainly subject to change): Alabama -16.5 (O/U 153.5)

Opponent KenPom: 74 (103 offense, 65 defense, 259 tempo)
Opponent Evan Miya: 78 (101 offense, 69 defense, 266 tempo)
Opponent Bart Torvik: 93 (137 offense, 79 defense, 190 tempo)
Opponent NET: 93 (Q2)
Opponent RPI: 54
Opponent Best KenPom Win: Clemson (32)
Opponent Worst KenPom Loss: North Florida (217)

UA Ken Pom: 9th (5 Off, 44th Defense, 5th Tempo)
UA Evan Miya: 7th (3 Off, 25th Defense, 1st Tempo)
UA Bart Torvik: 7 (4 Off, 34th Defense, 4th Tempo)
UA NET Ranking: 9 (7-2 Q1/2)
UA RPI: 3
UA Best KenPom Win: No. 4 (N) Houston
UA Worst KenPom Loss: No. 26 at Purdue

You’d like to be able to point to any one thing for the Gamecocks and say “That! That is what they do well.” But, the problem is, outside of getting to the free throw line, there’s absolutely nothing about South Carolina — offensively or defensively — that takes them out of average-to-sometimes-bad territory. But, if you were going to hesitantly pin any label on USC, it would “team that is defined by its post play, with a lot of asterisks.”

If “almost” were a team, it would be South Carolina. They are almost good at stuff without truly being good in any one area.

• As we saw last week with Oklahoma, the Gamecocks run a five-out system, with Lamont Paris emphasizing “action with pace.” The problem is, the USC guards are good enough of a shooting threat to put some pressure on opposing backcourts — but there’s no true must-guard perimeter player: three guys shoot right at average, with only sixth man Morris Ugusk well above that.
• It’s a team that minimizes turnovers, and leans into defense — while at the same time not being very good at forcing turnovers and being merely average in both floor and perimeter defense.
• It it a team that does its best work when it feeds the two forwards out of a painfully slow offense — while not being a good offensive rebounding club.
• It is a team that does an outstanding job of getting to the free throw line (perhaps their biggest strength) — while also being a terrible free throw shooting team and sending opposing shooters to the line far too often.

There’s no balance, certainly no pace, and too often USC finds itself playing a two-man screen-and-roll game, praying for an easy bucket in the post or a trip to the line. However, it’s also a risky strategy, one that affords little room for error. And when it’s just not panning out, when opponents are cleaning up on the glass or not sending USC to the stripe, there’s not enough firepower to shoot USCe back into the game.

So they are almost good at a lot of stuff, and on any given night, USC can be a competent basketball team. But is is a team of generalists trying to win with ugly basketball and marginal talent, which means that they have to win by drawing fouls, making opponents play their pace, and trying to keep the score in the low 70s. In fact, that is the magic number: USC has not lost a game where they have hit 71 points.

All of this has resulted in a first for the Tide this year. South Carolina is the only Alabama opponent to-date to under-play its schedule. Depending on your analytical service of choice, the Gamecocks are 1 to 2.3 games below their expected win total. And that shows in the results too. They’re 1-3 against T1 and T2 opponents vs. their very soft schedule, and even picked up a loss to a T4. For the Tide, this will be a Q2 NET opponent solely because it is on the road, but based on the first third of the season, USC will flirt with the 90s in NET all year. And that assumes they hold serve against some of the conference’s weaker opponents (Missouri, LSU, perhaps Vanderbilt, etc.).

You want to at least be complimentary of Nick Pringle’s new team. And Lamont Paris is a genuinely likable guy. But this club reminds you a lot of Ben Howland’s Mississippi State squads: all-defense with little counterpunch…though with less individual talent (taken as a whole).

Key Personnel

USC’s offense is driven by the forwards on a team that will be one of the smallest the Tide face all season.

Hometown sophomore Collin Murray-Boyles is having a great season, leading USC in floor shooting by a wide margin (61.7%), scoring (15.8), rebounds (9.4), blocks (1.4), and is second behind only PG Jamarii Thomas in assists (2.5). The biggest knock on CMB is that he’s really gimpy, and will turn it over a bunch. Per-touch, he leads the Gamecocks in TO rate, and in raw terms averages 3 a night. But in that same Gamecock paradox we’ve seen almost across the board, he’s also a good on-ball defender, and has nimble klepto skills.

He’s joined in the frontcourt by the ever-energetic Nick Pringle. The former ‘Bama F finally got the minutes and starting job he was after, and he’s making the most of it. Pringle is USC’s third leading scorer (10.5), and second in rebounding and blocks. He’s cut down on his turnovers too from those reckless ‘Bama years, and is having a solid all-around season. How good? He’s almost 2:1 assist-to-turnovers on the year. Good for him. We love Pringle. And while CMB is probably going to get the most attention, Pringle is the best interior defender for USC, and you can bet he’s going to sell-out to stop Alabama’s post game.

Among the guards, the man to watch is PG Jamarii Thomas. He leads the Gamecocks in minutes played, assists, steals, and is second in scoring. He’s the most valuable ballhandler and small defender on the team, and one of four players in their thin rotation that all shoot around 35-36% from the perimeter.

Zachary Davis is their Little Engine That Could, and the best rebounder of the bunch. While a limited offensive player, he’s very physical and hammers the glass on a team that is relatively poor at chasing their misses. Meanwhile, Jacobi Wright is probably USC’s second-best overall guard in terms of ballhandling, perimeter shooting, defense, and distribution. Weirdly, for a combo guard, he’s pretty awful from the free throw line (sub-70%). But that’s not out of the ordinary for the Gamecocks: among the starters, the “best” shoots just 77% on a team that is sub-70% overall. Yuck.

The Gamecocks only go eight deep (seven, most nights), and their bench scoring is even more limited than the starting rotation. It’s the worst in the SEC, and in the bottom third nationally, with just 28% of their scoring coming from guys 6-13.

CMB and Jamarii will be the defensive focus, without doubt.

How To Watch

Wednesday, Jan 8, 6:00 Central SEC Network

Prediction

The biggest threat to the Tide in this game is losing focus. USC is not a great shooting team, though it has some competent shooters. It’s not a great rebounding team overall, but it’s a high-energy team. It’s not a sloppy team, and it has limited weapons, but it will try to force its style of play, bleed clock, and make Alabama get impatient.

Consider this a trial balloon for what we will see much of the season. This is going to be the first of many games where the opponent tries to drag Alabama into a mudwrestling contest, bleed the clock, and take the air out of the ball. It’s up to the Tide to not get the big head, not get frustrated, and then make the most of their offensive opportunities — even if they have to shoot 30 free throws to get there. If Alabama leverages size and speed, and if they put forth some of that defensive energy we saw the first half of Oklahoma, this could be a rare road rout.

Alabama 84
South Carolina 65

Hope for the best.
Roll Tide.

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