South Carolina basketball: it’s ugly time
After a nap inspiring start to the 2017-2018 season, the South Carolina basketball team is bringing the ugly.
No one wants to play Frank Martin’s South Carolina basketball team. It’s ugly.
The Gamecock cagers play hard-nosed ball for 40 minutes. They muck up on defense. They bulldoze on offense . Sooner or later, you get tired of the bullying, and you foul because you’ve just had enough.
“We’re not shooting well, but we rely on our defense,” Gamecock Chris Silva told the state’s Andrew Ramspacher. “We’re aggressive, we’re one on the court and help each other all the time.”
They’re ugly.
That’s South Carolina basketball, ugly, but basketball is an ugly sport. How could it not be? Ten men competing in a confined space with one ball and two baskets measuring 18 inches across and ten feet from the ground.
The South Carolina basketball team has bought into the ugly, and it is winning.
Ugly ball
After an ugly pre-conference schedule produced an ugly pre-conference record of 9 – 3, the biggest win against UMass and a bad ugly like your-momma-said-wash-off-with-the-hose ugly loss against arch-rival Clemson 48 – 64, South Carolina opened SEC basketball play 0 – 2. No one was surprised.
The Gamecocks then earned a split – a home win against Vanderbilt and a road loss against Alabama. No one thought it was a big deal.
It was a big ugly deal.
The South Carolina basketball team was doing some figuring in the games against the Commodores and the Tide, because they went on the road and figured it out against Georgia.
They figured out it ‘s all about the ugly.
They brought that ugly home and smeared it all over Kentucky.
Get the hose, Wildcats.
Frank Martin’s ugly ball
Here’s how Kentucky Wildcat coach John Calipari describes South Carolina basketball “They played like Frank [Martin] coaches. They’re down and it looks like they’re going to get smacked and they never stopped playing and then they got the momentum.”
Mark Fox was more succinct. “We just got beat up on the backboard in the first half.”
Beat up by the ugly stick.
The Gamecocks beat you up until you are ugly.