Defense Leads Gamecocks to 73-51 Win at Boston College

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. (AP) — Collin Murray-Boyles scored 16 points and grabbed 14 rebounds as South Carolina beat Boston College 73-51 on Tuesday in an SEC/ACC Challenge contest.

Nick Pringle added 11 points for South Carolina.

Boston College’s Chad Venning made his first three shots to give the Eagles a 6-2 lead. Murray-Boyles scored the games first basket with a dunk and added a 3-pointer to reduce South Carolina’s deficit to 6-5. Jamarii Thomas made 1 of 2 foul shots with 16:44 to knot it, and after a little more than two minutes of scoreless play, Murray-Boyles threw down another dunk and the Gamecocks led the rest of the way.

Elijah Strong made a 3 to bring the Eagles within 14:13 with 10:22 before halftime. From there, South Carolina (5-3) outscored the Eagles 22-6 to close the half for a 36-19 lead. In the second half, the Gamecocks reached their first 20-plus point lead when Myles Stute made a 3 with 8:46 left.

Venning scored 12 points for Boston College (6-3).

Before Tuesday, Boston College and South Carolina last met on Jan. 1, 2011 in Columbia, South Carolina.

Tuesday’s game was the fourth all-time matchup between the two programs. The Gamecocks’ win evened the series at 2-2.

KEY STAT

• Carolina followed up a stout defensive performance over Virginia Tech with another strong effort on that end of the floor tonight, limiting Boston College to just 51 points and 33.3 percent (19-of-57) from the floor and 12.5 percent (2-of-16) from the 3-point line.

NOTABLES

• The frontcourt duo of Collin Murray-Boyles and Nick Pringle combined for 25 points and 18 rebounds.
• Murray-Boyles had his fourth career double-double (second this season), finishing with 16 points and 14 rebounds. He 14 points and 10 rebounds alone in the first half.
• Tonight marked Lamont Paris’ fifth win at South Carolina over an ACC school the last three seasons.
• The Gamecocks improve to 2-0 all-time in the SEC/ACC Challenge with tonight’s win and last season’s home win over Notre Dame. The SEC went 5-0 in the first slate of challenge games this evening.
• Carolina sunk double-digit 3s again tonight, with seven different players making a shot from behind the arc.
• The Gamecock bench was effective again scoring 22 points led by nine from Morris Ugusuk and eight from Zachary Davis.
• The 51 points allowed were the second fewest in the Paris era at South Carolina. The Gamecocks allowed just 43 points in a win over Elon last season in December.

UP NEXT

South Carolina returns to Colonial Life Arena to face East Carolina (7-2) in what will be the team’s first Saturday home game on Dec. 7. Dave Weinstein (pxp) and John Williams (analyst) will be on the call for the 2 p.m. (ET) tip on SEC Network+.

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