South Carolina lost its defensive fight against UK because it could not make shots on offense. (Vicky Graff Photo)
South Carolina coach Frank Martin might be the most honest, most quotable coach in the Southeastern Conference. He’s not one to BS or avoid questions. He just gives you an honest answer to whatever question you ask. He certainly did not make excuses for his team after Saturday’s 92-68 loss to Kentucky.
“Obviously, the second half was embarrassing. The resolve, the lack of fight was disappointing. The bottom line is our guards combined to shoot 3-for-31 from the field,” Martin said. “When we were not able to score, we lost our fight defensively.
“If you don’t have fight when you play teams in the SEC, they will score. They will jump up and make a whole bunch of 3’s. It’s not what they do but it’s what they did today, and that created the separation in the game.”
Kentucky guards Davion Mintz and BJ Boston both made six 3-pointers, something that has not happened all season for UK to have two players do that in the same game.
Was it Kentucky’s defense that stymied his team’s offense?
“We just couldn’t score. You’re 2-for-17 from the three, your guards are 3-for-31, and you turn it over 18 times, you’re not going to have success defensively. We have not been a very good team defensively all year. We had moments that we played well, but we struggled to sustain discipline and effort defensively,” the South Carolina coach said.
“When we started, I think about five minutes into the first half, we just stopped scoring, we just couldn’t make a basket. Then we started leaking, then eventually the dam burst, we couldn’t stop them and couldn’t score. That’s a bad combination.”
That dam did burst, something that has seldom happened for a UK opponent this year. But when it did, this time the Cats poured it on in their final regular-season game and Martin didn’t think his team did much to stop it. Kentucky has had the same lack of fight at times but has more talent than South Carolina which can still keep it in a game, something the Gamecocks could not do.
“You have to have a certain resolve, a certain fight, defensively. Then you have to be able to score. If we’re going to play fast, which we do, you have to score. You can’t go through stretches of games, which we go and never make a shot. I wish I could give you a better answer than that, but the bottom line is we just struggled to score,” Martin said.
“We were scoring in the first half, and we were in a really good place, upbeat, guarding, and then we started missing, missing, and completely lost our fight. When you lose the resolve, the fight, you have no chance.”
It’s a feeling UK fans understand because the Cats have had the same kind of fatal stretches in many of their 15 losses this season.
“I mean in basketball, you have the ball and if you’re open, you shoot it and it either goes in or it doesn’t go in. Turnovers are the ones that are the problem. That’s bad decisions. Some turnovers we made the right play and guys didn’t catch the ball,” Martin said. “But when it comes to shooting a basketball, Mintz shot one, shot two, shot three, and made all three from further out every time.
‘It doesn’t mean that we played bad, we were good defensively there, but we should have identified him earlier and known that he was coming to shoot it again. Instead, we just backed up and put our hands down. But at the end of the day, he made three shots further out every time.
“We missed shots that were right there so you can’t go 3-for-31 and win. You just can’t do it. And there’s no mystery offense calling that helps you shoot better. The player’s just gotta make shots.”
