South Carolina Drops Road Game at Texas, 84-75

AUSTIN, TEXAS (AP) — Dailyn Swain scored 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, and Texas pulled ahead midway through the second half to beat South Carolina 84-75 on Tuesday night.

Tramon Mark added 18 points for Texas (14-9, 5-5 Southeastern Conference). Camden Heide and Matas Vokietaitis chipped in with 12 points apiece. Texas finished 29-of-36 shooting from the line (81%), with Swain hitting all nine of his free-throw attempts. Heide made three of the Longhorns’ seven 3-pointers.

Heide made consecutive 3-pointers to give the Longhorns the lead for good, 56-50, with 10:37 to play. The Gamecocks later used a 5-0 spurt to cut the deficit to 70-68 with 3:23 to go. Swain answered with a jumper and dunk.

Mark sank a jumper from the free-throw line with 38.2 seconds left for an 80-71 lead.

Meechie Johnson scored a career-best 35 points on 12-of-21 shooting to lead South Carolina. He also made 10 of 14 free throws. Elijah Strong added 12 points for the Gamecocks (11-12, 2-8), who have dropped four straight and seven of eight.

South Carolina opened on a 16-7 run and didn’t trail until Texas closed the first half on 7-3 surge for a 35-31 lead at the break. Vokietaitis scored eight points and Swain added seven. Johnson scored 15 first-half points for the Gamecocks.

KEY STATS

• The Longhorns took advantage of their 17 offensive rebounds for a 20-7 edge in second chance points. Texas was plus-15 on the boards overall (40-25) in the game.
• Texas was also 29-of-36 (80.6%) at the charity stripe. It’s just the sixth time in four seasons under Lamont Paris the team has allowed 30 or more free throw attempts. The 36 foul shots are the most by an opponent in the Paris era (previous high was 35 by Vanderbilt at Memorial Gym on 1/3/23).
• The Gamecocks scored 46 points in the paint, their most in a game this season since scoring a season-high 48 paint points in the team’s win over Radford back on Nov. 18.

 NOTABLES

• Redshirt senior Meechie Johnson finished with a career-high 35 points, his ninth consecutive game in double figures and his team-leading 17th game this season with 10 or more points.
• The last player with multiple 30-point games in a season was Sindarius Thornwell in 2017 (had 44 vs. Alabama on 2/7/17 and 34 at Kentucky on 1/21/17).
• He was an efficient 12-of-21 (57.1%) from the floor tonight and his 12 made field goals are a new career-high mark.
• Johnson also led the team in assists again with six, his 12th game this season (29th career) with five or more helpers.
• Kobe Knox had a team-high seven boards to go alongside eight points. He was a perfect 6-of-6 from behind the line.
• Freshman EJ Walker got his first career start tonight in place of junior Elijah Strong. The Florence, Ky native tallied a career-high eight points, going 4-of-5 from the floor in 21 minutes of run.
• Strong was the only other Gamecock in double-figures tonight with 12 points (5-of-10 FGs) in 17 minutes.
• Tonight’s matchup marked the Gamecocks’ first trip to Austin since 1982 and just the fourth all-time meeting between the two schools.

UP NEXT
South Carolina returns home and faces Missouri (15-7, 5-4 SEC) on Saturday. Dave Neal (pxp) and Jon Sundvold (analyst) will be on the call for the 1 p.m. (ET) broadcast on SEC Network.

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