COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s men’s basketball team is realistic about their situation. After a challenging season, they aren’t pretending to be underdogs poised for a miraculous run. The likely outcome is their season ending after their SEC Tournament opener.
However, the SEC Tournament provides an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, offering a sliver of hope. Despite the daunting task of winning five games in five days against the highly competitive SEC, the possibility remains.
“It’s like another reset. We’ve played all the other teams in the SEC now, we know what it’s about,” USC center Nick Pringle said. “We know we can compete with them.”
While USC finished 2-16 in the league, six of their losses were by three points or less. Had they won those close games, they could have been on the NCAA Tournament bubble. Instead, they are the 16th seed. Their first game is against Arkansas, one of the two teams they defeated this season.
“The odds are against us. Being a low seed, you got to win more games than teams that get a bye,” Jacobi Wright said. “We can beat anybody, we feel like. We’re going into it with that mentality.”
Historically, winning multiple games in consecutive days in the SEC Tournament was common from 1933-52. However, since the tournament’s restart in 1979, only four teams have won four games in four days: Auburn in 1985, Arkansas in 2000, Georgia in 2008, and Mississippi State in 2009.
Since the SEC expanded to 14 teams in 2012-13, no team has won five games in five days. With the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, the challenge has increased.
South Carolina is the only original 12 team SEC team to have never won the conference tournament. They reached the title game in 1998 and 2006, nearly winning four games in four days in 2006.
However, recent history shows that five wins in five days is possible. Connecticut did it in the 2011 Big East Tournament, and NC State achieved it in the 2023 ACC Tournament, reaching the Final Four.
“It’s just about making the right plays, just being there in the right moments. Just making it happen,” Pringle said. “We can compete with any team in this league. It’s hard to tell by our record, but we’re continuing to get better.”
SEC Awards:
- Collin Murray-Boyles was named to the All-SEC second team.
- Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk was named SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Bosmans-Verdonk is the first USC player to receive a conference superlative since Hassani Gravett in 2019. Lamont Paris was named SEC Coach of the Year last season.
