It was a transformative offseason for the Gamecocks men's basketball team. 

After a disappointing (12-20) 2024-25 season, the Gamecocks brought back just three players from last season’s squad and rebuilt with additions from the portal and high school. 

The current team is now (10-5) overall and two games into SEC play. The Gamecocks will be looking to avoid the same fate as last season when the wheels fell off in conference play. 

South Carolina lost its SEC opener to No. 11 Vanderbilt 83-71. Head coach Lamont Paris is hoping his team learned a thing or two in its first matchup against a ranked opponent.   

“I think that game for our guys, hopefully, was a lesson in what aggression really looks like,” Paris said. “And aggressive doesn’t just mean willingness to shoot the ball makes me an aggressive player. I’m talking about aggressive moves, aggressive attacks. So, I thought that they did a good job of that, and we did not do a great job of that.” 

Aggression and physicality are important qualities to have in the SEC. There are five ranked teams in the conference, and the Gamecocks must play all of them at least once.

The team picked up its first conference win of the season against unranked LSU on Tuesday and will now set its sights on games against ranked Georgia and ranked Arkansas within the next week. 

South Carolina will not be favored in those games, but they are not impossible to win. The team will need to lean on its established leaders to do so. 

Returning transfer Meechie Johnson is picking up where he left off after spending a year back at Ohio State. Johnson is leading the team in scoring, assists and steals. It’s not the most efficient production, shooting 41% from the floor and 33% from three, but it’s enough to have helped the team win some other games this season. 

Transfers Mike Sharavjamts and Elijah Strong have found their footing on the team, both averaging double-digit scoring while shooting around 50% from the floor. Sharavjamts even leads the team in rebounds, despite being listed as a guard. 

Freshman Eli Ellis is also having a strong start to his first college campaign. He is averaging 10 points, three rebounds and three assists in 27 minutes per game. He’s been shooting the ball better as of recent after a bit of a slump in the middle of non-conference season.

Myles Stutie was one of the three returners from last season and has started to heat up lately. After one double-digit scoring outing in his first eight games, he’s since reached that mark in each of the past three. In those games, he’s shot above 50% from three twice. 

“I think he’s been playing better,” Paris said. “Honestly, he’s the barometer it appears as to what he does offensively and what the outcome ends up turning out for us. So, it’s not that we have to have him play well in order to win, but when he does play well, we tend to win.”

While individual players are shooting better, the team overall is still one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the SEC. The group as a whole shoots just 30% from behind the arc, and only three shoot better than 33%. 

On the contrary, when the team gets inside the paint, they hit their shots at a clip that rivals anyone in the country. 

Paris said the team will not shy away from the deep ball as it spaces the floor and opens up the paint for scoring opportunities.  It is crucial to their identity. 

“They go hand in hand. I would say our two-point field goals are, in large part, a byproduct of the fact that we do shoot threes,” Paris said. “You’re not going to stand here and let those guys make threes, so you’re going to adjust to that immediately, and that’s been a part of what’s allowed us to play well at times.”