First Scouting Report: Against South Carolina, UK must contain a big-name freshman
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Game day: No. 7 Alabama 78, Kentucky 52
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
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A look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next men’s basketball game:
The opponent
Kentucky (10-5, 1-2 SEC) will face South Carolina (7-8, 0-2 SEC) on Tuesday, Jan. 10, at Rupp Arena (capacity 20,545) at Central Bank Center in downtown Lexington:
The game will tip off at 7 p.m. (EST) and be telecast by ESPN2.
Coach Lamont Paris and the Gamecocks were drubbed 85-42 by No. 8 Tennessee on Saturday in Columbia.
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time series with South Carolina 54-13 and has won 13 of the past 16 meetings.
As UK head man, John Calipari is 13-4 vs. the Gamecocks.
South Carolina head man Lamont Paris has never coached against Kentucky.
Most recent meeting
Oscar Tshiebwe had 18 points, 14 rebounds, three blocked shots, two assists and two steals to pace Kentucky to an 86-76 victory over South Carolina before 12,009 fans in Colonial Life Arena in Columbia on Feb. 8, 2022.
Power rankings
The NCAA NET Rankings have Kentucky No. 36, South Carolina No. 253.
In the Pomeroy Ratings, Kentucky is No. 16, South Carolina No. 203.
The Sagarin Ratings have Kentucky No. 29, South Carolina No. 180.
Know your foe
1. After 10 seasons with Frank Martin as head coach yielded only one NCAA Tournament appearance — albeit a trip to the 2017 Final Four — South Carolina has turned to Lamont Paris as its new head man. Paris, 48, spent the previous five seasons as coach at Chattanooga.
At Chattanooga, Paris started out 10-23 (2017-18) and 12-20 (2018-19), but built the program to seasons of 20-13 (2019-20), 18-8 (2020-21) and 27-8 (2021-22). Last season, Paris and the Mocs won the Southern Conference regular-season and tournament titles.
In the NCAA Tournament, No. 13 seed Chattanooga put a major scare into Big Ten co-champion and No. 4 seed Illinois before falling 54-53 in the round of 64.
Paris parlayed the momentum from Chattanooga’s big 2021-22 season into an SEC head coaching job at South Carolina.
2. The Gamecocks boast one of the most-touted freshmen in the country. GG Jackson was originally listed as the No. 1 player in the 2023 recruiting class and initially committed to North Carolina.
However, the 6-foot-9, 200-pound Columbia, S.C., product had a change of heart on two fronts. He re-classified from the 2023 recruiting class to 2022 and reneged on Hubert Davis’ Tar Heels in favor of the hometown Gamecocks.
So far this season, Jackson is averaging 16.9 points and 7.5 rebounds. However, he has struggled with his shot, making 41.9 percent on field-goal tries, 33.8 on three-point attempts and 63.3 percent on foul shots.
Going into the Tennessee game, Jackson also had a 1-to-4 assist-to-turnover ratio, having assisted on nine buckets this season but turned the ball over 36 times.
3. Through its first 14 games of 2022-23, South Carolina had not been a good offensive team. The Gamecocks were making only 40.5 percent of their shots, 32.4 percent of their treys and a horrid 60.7 percent on free throws.
Going into Saturday’s game with Tennessee, South Carolina was being outscored, on average, 70.1 points to 65.9 points, by its opponents.
This story was originally published January 7, 2023 at 3:07 PM.
