Gamecocks Struggling To Fight Through Mid-Game Offensive Slumps In SEC Play

While not the only issue on Tuesday night, the South Carolina men's basketball team's recent loss to Georgia showcased a major shooting issue with the team.

After Tuesday night's loss to the Georgia Bulldogs, the South Carolina Gamecocks looked simply dejected in their postgame pressers. Meechie Johnson and BJ Mack both emphasized a need to "get back in the lab", while head coach Lamont Paris seemed at times to be at a loss for words. While it will be easy to look back on this loss in a vacuum, the truth is that some of the problems that kept Carolina from pulling away from Georgia tonight have lingered throughout their past few games.

In their past three conference matchups, the Gamecocks have had multiple stretches where they've missed four or more consecutive shots on the offensive end. Here's the full breakdown from each game:

• @ Alabama: Three different stretches | Cumulative Time: 13:39 | Outscored 20-0 in that span
• @ Missouri: Four different stretches | Cumulative Time: 15:32 | Outscored 26-9 in that span
• vs Georgia: Two different stretches | Cumulative Time: 12:33 | Outscored 24-6 in that span

They say basketball is a game of runs, and in conference play at the Power 5 level, no team is going to play perfect throughout a game. However, South Carolina is displaying a trend of team-wide slumps in the middle of games they can't afford to drop if they want to contend for the Big Dance in March. These shooting woes led to a blowout loss suffered at the hands of the Crimson Tide, could've costed them against the Tigers and caught up to them once again against the Bulldogs last night.

Everyone will have to look in the mirror after this loss, and look to see where they could be better, because if this continues, we'll quickly be talking about the NIT instead of the NCAA tournament when discussing the Gamecocks.

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