Gamecocks slip past Mississippi State to improve SEC, NCAA outlook

The only field goal of Duane Notice’s Senior Night was what he hopes is the last of his Colonial Life Arena career.

Not in a malicious way. In a way that has South Carolina playing in the NCAA Tournament, not a home NIT game.

Notice’s 3-pointer with 2:15 to go gave the Gamecocks a five-point lead and they outlasted stubborn Mississippi State 63-57 on Tuesday, firming their NCAA Tournament projection and clinching a double-bye in next week’s SEC Tournament. Nothing’s determined until Selection Sunday – nobody knows that better than USC – but the Gamecocks avoided a really bad loss and will finish the SEC Tournament no worse than 22-10.

Not that they’re talking about it.

“No, I don’t think we’ve done enough. We still got one more game to play,” Sindarius Thornwell said. “Our record was about the same last year.”

Their RPI and schedule strength numbers (which dwarf last year) will be discussed much more in the next two weeks, so Tuesday was about crediting USC for finding a way to win when the season seemed to once again be slipping into a crevasse. The Gamecocks (22-8, 12-5 SEC) were in a familiar situation – taking a double-digit lead, only to lose it as they got away from the things that got the lead. Their defense was flagging, their point guard was trying to play his way out of a terrible slump to no avail and when Tyson Carter drilled a 3-pointer for a 52-50 lead with 4:33 to play, fingernails in the crowd were chewed to the knuckles.

USC didn’t panic.

“We’ve been in these moments, time after time during the season,” Thornwell said. “We’re battle-tested. We were good.”

Thornwell, as he did to give USC a 10-point lead, drove and got to the free-throw line as the Gamecocks’ defense tightened. He wound up with 22 points in another performance that could have him as a top candidate for SEC Player of the Year.

“That’s why he’s the best player in this league. He doesn’t score points in irrelevant moments,” USC coach Frank Martin said. “He scores in the most important moments.”

That set up Notice’s 3, only the fourth make in 19 USC attempts from beyond the arc. Notice caught, shot – and the crowd, which included his mother for the first time at CLA, roared.

“Whenever I’m open, I’m going to let it fly,” Notice said.

Mississippi State (14-15, 5-12), which came into the game on a six-game losing streak and without its best scorer, gave USC all it could handle, but only made one of its final 10 shots after Carter’s lead-taking 3. The Gamecocks accepted how to play against the Bulldogs’ zone, shooting (and missing) 3-pointers instead of driving against a team that was in the bonus with 12 minutes to play in the first half; couldn’t finish a shot at the rim and had 16 turnovers, 11 in the stretch where it lost its 10-point lead.

But Thornwell and Notice picked up their teamThey weren’t going to talk about their postseason chances because they were here last year.

But they could be feeling a lot worse as they head to Ole Miss to conclude the regular season on Saturday, then take a long break.

“I’m not worried about that,” Martin said. “We’ve got to prepare to go play Ole Miss, then we got to figure out a way … I want to play on Saturday (in the SEC Tournament semifinals). NCAA, whatever comes after that, we’ll sit and pray real hard that people in that room actually like us a little bit more than they did last year.”

This story was originally published March 1, 2017 at 6:31 AM with the headline "Gamecocks slip past Mississippi State to improve SEC, NCAA outlook."