South Carolina’sKyle Kennard, who won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the top defensive player in college football, has decided to opt out of theGamecocks’ Cheez-It Citrus Bowl matchup withIllinois, coach Shane Beamer said Wednesday.

Kennard, a 6-foot-5, 254-pound edge rusher, led the SEC in tackles for loss (15.5) and sacks (11.5) and also forced three fumbles. This was his only season at South Carolina after transferring from Georgia Tech.

Beamer said Kennard was skipping the bowl game to prepare for the 2025 NFL draft. ESPN’s Mel Kiper has Kennard rated as the No. 6 outside linebacker in the draft, and ESPN’s Field Yates projects Kennard to be the No. 26 overall selection by the Green Bay Packers.

Kennard was named the SEC Defensive Player of the Year by both the coaches and AP and was an integral part of a South Carolina defensive line that was widely considered one of the best in the country. Kennard and freshman Dylan Stewart combined for 18 sacks, and the Gamecocks tied for third nationally with 30 sacks.

South Carolina (9-3) is trying to win 10 or more games for only the fifth time in school history when it takes on Illinois on Dec. 31 in Orlando.

These wins have never come easy for South Carolina this season. So, when Tuesday’s game against Clemson went down to the wire, it wasn’t a complete surprise.

But when push came to shove, the Gamecocks were able to overcome all adversity they faced and earned a 91-88 win over the No. 25 Tigers in overtime. The win puts them at 8-3 on the year with two non-conference games left against Radford and Presbyterian before starting their SEC slate.

Here are five things we learned from watching the way the Gamecocks performed on Tuesday.

Big mistakes could’ve been much more costly

For as crazy as this game was, South Carolina could’ve won it without all the late game drama. In the final 10 seconds of the second half, the Gamecocks went 1-for-4 at the free throw line. Even if they had just gone 50 percent at the line on these four shots, the game would’ve been out of reach for Clemson.

pBut because Jacobi Wright missed two free throws and Jamarii Thomas missed one in that span, it gave the Tigers one last chance to extend the game into overtime. With five seconds left, Clemson guard Chase Hunter drove down the floor and heaved up a three-point shot that banked off the backboard and went in to tie the game at 80.

Hindsight is 20-20, but it’s still mind-boggling that South Carolina didn’t foul in this situation. Even with the missed free throws, a lot of the headaches could’ve possibly been avoided if the defense just fouled Hunter. If Hunter made the hypothetical free throws, it would’ve been a one-point game with a few seconds to go. It would’ve just come down to a few more free throws to try and close the game out.

In his postgame press conference, head coach Lamont Paris explained that they did want to foul Hunter if they were up three. If they were up four, they weren’t going to foul, which would’ve made sense in a two-possession game. It’s not ideal that these mistakes are happening with SEC play on the horizon. However, good teams find a way to overcome their mistakes. That’s what the Gamecocks did against Clemson.

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This win goes beyond bragging rights

Through 10 games, South Carolina had zero Quad I wins to its name. The Gamecocks suffered road/neutral site losses to Indiana and Xavier in games that could’ve been massive for their resume. Instead, their best wins before Tuesday came against mediocre ACC teams like Virginia Tech and Boston College.

In what really was their final opportunity to play against a high-quality opponent, they took full advantage and earned themselves a probable Q1 win over Clemson. Even if the Tigers fall out of the AP Top 25 next week, it won’t be a huge deal because the NET rankings should hold more weight. In case you’re wondering, Clemson is currently ranked No. 19 in that metric.

This will go down as the signature win of non-conference play for South Carolina. It doesn’t magically change everything overnight and put the team into Joe Lunardi’s next edition of Bracketology. But it will put others on notice. It proves this team is still fully capable of doing great things this year with the goal of getting back to the NCAA Tournament.

Gamecocks look ready for SEC gauntlet

Going off the last point, the vibes would be a lot different right now if South Carolina didn’t beat Clemson. Since it was able to do so, there is hope that things will continue to trend upwards as conference play gets going after the new year.

The Gamecocks will be in for a grueling 18-game stretch where the SEC as good as it has ever been. There will not be many lull moments once January begins, as every team will present challenges. Even after the Clemson win, KenPom still sees them struggling in conference play and finishing 5-13. The good news is that the computers aren’t always right.

After Tuesday night, it’s abundantly clear that South Carolina will be right in the mix of the SEC. It’s going to be tough. It might not be like it was last season when the team won 13 conference games. It’s always possible but the bar was set so high in that magical 26-win season from a year ago.

Clemson might be an SEC opponent, but the Tigers were a great test to see where the Gamecocks were really at during this point in the season. With a chance to go into SEC play on a seven-game winning streak and only three losses, you have to be feeling good about where things are at for the moment.

South Carolina doesn’t win this one without Myles Stute

No one on this team needed a big-time performance more than Myles Stute. The senior guard had been struggling this year and couldn’t get into a rhythm from a shooting standpoint. He was averaging 4.8 points on 29.1 percent shooting and hadn’t scored a single point in his last two games.

But on Tuesday, he came through time and time again for the Gamecocks to help secure the victory. He scored a season-high 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting and drained five three-pointers. He was money from the corner all night long. His biggest shot came when he drilled a three to put them up 79-75 with 23.2 seconds left in regulation.

While he had his best shooting performance of the season thus far, he was more impactful beyond those shots he hit. Stute grabbed five rebounds, two of which came on the offensive glass and led directly to points. After Clemson captured its first lead of the night more than 30 minutes in, he grabbed a rebound on a missed free throw by Nick Pringle and went right back up for an easy two against Clemson’s Ian Schieffelin.

Then with 10 seconds to go, after Wright missed two free throws, Stute grabbed a huge rebound to retain possession and force the Tigers to foul again. Of course, it led to Thomas going 1-for-2 at the line and Clemson eventually tying the game to force overtime. But South Carolina wouldn’t have come out on top with Stute’s clutch outing.

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Overcame foul trouble dilemmas

For how entertaining this game was, the officiating was certainly a low point and took some of the air out of a great game being played. At this point, you can almost bank on a lot of fouls being called any time Pat Adams is listed as one of the officials. All in all, there were 44 fouls in this game, an insane number that led to multiple players on each team fouling out.

For Clemson, there were three starters who fouled out, including the front court duo of Schieffelin and Viktor Lahkin. This was a big deal for the Gamecocks, especially with Lahkin only playing 15 minutes on Tuesday. Making him a non-factor for the most part was a big difference maker.

On the South Carolina side of things, the Gamecocks were down their starting front court as well, with Pringle and Collin Murray-Boyles picking up five fouls. Luckily, both players didn’t get knocked out of the game until it got into overtime. But each player had to take a backseat as they had four fouls apiece not long into the second half.

With Pringle and Murray-Boyles both playing less than 30 minutes, this forced some other players into action. Jordan Butler only played one minute in the game, but he made four big free throws in the first half to cap off a 10-0 scoring run for the Gamecocks right before halftime. Paris also had to call upon Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk to play in the final seconds of the game with his two starters now out.

So, despite some questionable foul calls and losing the front court, South Carolina still came away with the win. It’s a good sign that other players can be counted upon when things don’t go according to plan.

Following a 91-88 win over No. 25 Clemson, head coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media about South Carolina’s performance on Tuesday and what this victory means going forward. Here’s what he had to say.

— That was fun, interesting, exciting. All of the above. Really excited for the guys to have that kind of expreicne. It was a great atmosphere. There was so much adversity to fight through. The team showed some real character to channel the right energy to focus up and find a way to win. This is what college basketball is all about.

— The players deserve that win. You need that type of game for growth. He could hear how they were excited they were from the coaches’ locker room.

— Myles Stute is a worker. He has a process. He shoots the ball well because he has a process. There’s no lack of belief. There’s been some lack of performance from his stand point. But Paris still believes in his shooting capabilities.

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— They talk all the time about being ready. Everyone has to be ready. Had some guys who had their numbers called tonight with others getting into foul trouble. It’s hard to say any person didn’t play a big role in this game. References how BBV secured a potential game-winning rebound in the final seconds. He was ready to go out there and do that. Applauds all those guys for their efforts.

— He’s always believed that the advantage goes to the team that’s not disappointed about the extra overtime period. He feels there’s a real advantage to that, particularly when that comes off the heels of some self-inflicted wounds. When you make some mistakes, it’s easy to focus on those and not get to the next play. You’re going to be tempted to hit a grand slam. At the end of regulation, they did want to foul Chase Hunter if they were up three. If they were up four, they weren’t going to foul. It easily could’ve cost them but it didn’t. It will help them grow.

— He knew Hunter was cooking in the second half. But there’s so many things that were happening, especially when you’re in a foul trouble situation. You’re processing so much information in those moments. There’s really not a lot of time to get caught up in how guys are performing. This is in reference to CMB and Hunter having great games for each team.

— They’ve gotten better as a team. This team would be judged by the growth they would make. This was going to be a team that he would encourage people to judge based off growth. This team has a really high ceiling. It’s been incremental, steady, consistent growth.

— Nick Pringle has had some good games as of late. They try to stay true to what they do. They’ve got a variety of plays specifically for him to catch the ball on the block and do something. You forget how young these guys are. It’s exciting to see the growth that goes with that. He’s gotten so much better as an individual player.

— They had some good wins last year. Hates to throw the word ranking out. But as far as rankings and achieving, he wants the voting committee to get it right at the end of the year. At the end of the day, once they got ranked eventually last year, they never were not ranked after that. They aren’t there this year. But they are getting there. They ratcheted up the schedule this year, for sure. Thoguht this was a very important game for that reason. You want to make sure you schedule hard for a reason and reap the benefits for some of that. It’s great to get this win to go into conference play.

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— This win builds true confidence. There’s a such thing as false confidence. This is real confidence because they know the team is good. They see who they are, how they compete, who they’ve beaten. This breads real, true confidence.

— It was great to see a huge crowd tonight. His anticipation was that they would have a great crowd but his expectations were exceeded. It says a lot about the student body. Even without the full compliment of the student body, the community showed up. That was inspirational to the players. You want to win for your fans. They came, they cheered. They rode the highs and the lows with you. You want to win badly for the fanbase. Glad they did that.

— Viktor Lahkin is a good player for Clemson. USC attacked him offensively. Pringle was his matchup most of the time. They made some strong moves against him and put him in jeopardy of fouling, which he did. Just by attacking him, it neutralized him as a shot blocker.