Collin Murray-Boyles Quickly Becoming Key Player On South Carolina's MBB Team

South Carolina's men's basketball program and fans are seeing Collin Murray-Boyles evolve and grow before their very eyes.

When an athlete contracts Mononucleosis, it's usually the kind of setback that can partly, and in some instances, completely derail a season for said athlete. That can especially be the case when you play a sport like basketball, where aerobic conditioning is of the utmost importance when it comes to your strength and conditioning profile, and on top of all of that, you're a true freshman who's entering the meat grinder that is the SEC.

This situation is what South Carolina forward Collin Murray-Boyles endured at the beginning of the 2023-24 season, but from his first appearance against Clemson back on December 6th up to last night's game against the Ole Miss Rebels, the South Carolina native has undergone tremendous growth on the offensive end; that growth is evidenced by the fact that he's led the Gamecocks in scoring in each of their past two games against Georgia and Ole Miss, all while shooting an astonishing 75 percent from the floor on 20 shots.

"I've been working every day, [doing] extra work with Coach [Tanner] Bronson, Coach [Tim Buckley]. We've just been getting in the gym, lifting with Scott [Greenawalt], and then just practicing with the guys, building that chemistry back up, and then obviously playing in the games leading up to this moment," Collin said after last night's win over Ole Miss. "It's just building me to be a better player."

What's made Murray-Boyles so valuable to this team for the entirety of this season has been his play on the defensive end where his athletic prowess is on full display. No one play last night encapsulated Collin's impact on that end of the floor better than his game-changing block against the Rebels' 7'5 center Jamarion Sharp, stopping the senior from cutting Carolina's lead down to one possession.

Collin Murray-Boyles guarding Ole Miss' Allen Flanigan (6th Feb., 2024) / Jeff Blake | USA Today Network

"What a big-time play. I mean, that's a big, big, big-time play," head coach Lamont Paris said after the game. "[That] one specifically is going to go down in the archives. He's just such a talented young man. I mean, he's incredibly talented physically and in some other ways, but he showcased it. That's just an individual play, right? That's not in our scheme. I didn't tell him to go do that or anything that we practice that made him go do that. That's just an individual play."

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