Dec. 19, 2014

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COLUMBIA, S.C. – Emboldened by a raucous crowd of over 11,000 fans, the South Carolina Gamecocks (6-3) earned a big win over archrival Clemson (6-4) Friday evening at Colonial Life Arena. Duane Notice would score 14 of his game-high 19 points over the final 20 minutes, helping Carolina turn a two-point halftime deficit into a 68-45 win. The sophomore guard would nearly match the entire offensive output of the Tigers, who as a team made just five field goals and scored 15 points in the second half.

With Clemson holding a 30-28 lead coming out of halftime, the two teams traded possessions and were knotted at 35 after a 3 from Clemson’s Jaron Blossomgame with 15:09 to play. That would be the visiting side’s final field goal made over the next ten minutes, as the Gamecocks embarked on a 26-2 run in that span to put the game away. A barrage of 3-pointers from the Carolina guards sparked the streak, with Notice making two and Sindarius Thornwell adding another that ballooned the lead into double digits and forced a timeout with ten minutes to play.

Free throws from both Demetrius Henry and Tyrone Johnson and a lay-up from Johnson continued the run for the Gamecocks, as the Tigers scored just two points the middle eight minutes of the half. Notice connected for his career-high fifth 3 of the contest with 4:33 remaining to put the Carolina lead at 64-39.

After connecting on just 1-of-9 attempts from deep in the first half, the Gamecocks would hit on 6-of-13 in the second half. Four would come from Notice alone. On the defensive end, South Carolina would limit the opposition to 1-of-11 from long range.

In the opening half it was a game of runs, with the Gamecocks opening with a 10-0 run to take an early 16-7 advantage, holding the Tigers scoreless for nearly six minutes. Notice hit Carolina’s first 3 of the game near the nine-minute mark to push the lead to 10 at 19-9. A make at the foul line from Thornwell pushed the lead to 11, but the Tigers responded with a 10-0 run of their own to pull within one at 20-19 with 5:20 to play in the half, forcing a Carolina timeout.

Johnson collected his sixth assist of the half near the three-minute mark on a nifty pass and lay-in under the basket from Mindaugas Kacinas to put the Carolina lead at four. A jumper from Rod Hall with just seven seconds left in the half gave the Tigers their first lead since early in the half, and Clemson held a two-point advantage at 30-28 at the break.

Clemson scored 14 points off of eight Gamecock turnovers in the first half, compared to just four Carolina points off of seven Tiger giveaways. Laimonas Chatkevicius led the Gamecocks with eight points in the opening set, while Henry and Kacinas added six apiece. After allowing the Tigers to score nearly half of their points directly off turnovers in the first half, the Gamecocks would turn the ball over just four times in the second half and kept the Tigers scoreless off them.

With the defensive effort in the second half by Carolina, the Tigers would make just 17.9 percent of its 28 attempts and ended the game at 29.8 percent. It marks the third straight game where an opponent has not been able to crack the 30 percent mark in a game. The 23-point win is the program’s largest in the storied rivalry since a 28-point margin in 1971 and it is the biggest win by either side since 1994.

GAME CHANGER

Holding a 41-35 lead with 12 minutes to play, two 3-pointers from Duane Notice and another from Sindarius Thornwell on three straight possessions blew the game wide open.

KEY STAT A 26-2 run from 15:09 to 5:00 helped Carolina turn a tie game into a 61-39 advantage. The Gamecocks made 7-of-13 field goal attempts (including 4-of-7 on 3s) and 8-of-10 attempts at the free throw line during the run.

NOTABLES

• Friday’s meeting is the 165th all-time between the Gamecocks and Tigers. With the win, Carolina extends its lead in the series to 89-76.
• Senior guard Tyrone Johnson matched his season high with six assists in the first half alone. Johnson finished with nine assists, a new career high and the most by any Gamecock player this season.
• Junior forward Laimonas Chatkevicius registered his fourth double-figure scoring game of the season and the 11th of his career with 12 points vs. Clemson.
• Junior forward Michael Carrera returned for the Gamecocks after missing the previous three games (UNC Asheville, Marshall, Oklahoma State) due to a concussion. He finished with six points and six rebounds in just 10 minutes of action.

QUOTABLE South Carolina Head Coach Frank Martin

Opening Statement
I’m just really proud of our guys. We played very good offense at the end of the second half. [Clemson] is a good basketball team.They’re really good. They have upperclassmen. We had five bad offensive possessions that they converted into basket, basket, basket, basket. That gave them life and kind of put us on our heels a little bit. We should have attacked their zone differently. We made the adjustment at halftime. By not attacking the zone the right way it kind of got the game slow. Laimonas [Chatkevicius], we challenged him at halftime. He had zero rebounds at the half. The reason we came out in the second half and played as well as we did was because he was the guy who initiated the whole thing.

UP NEXT

South Carolina will have less than a 48-hour turnaround, as the Gamecocks will host Coker College on Sunday in an afternoon matinee set to tip at 3:30 p.m. ET. The matchup will be broadcast on SEC Network+ with Andy Demetra and Alex English on the call. The meeting will be the first-ever between the Gamecocks and Cobras.

TWEETS OF THE GAME