The four foes that have become the defeated teams in the Florida Gators’ four-game winning streak in men’s basketball all had this or that to recommend them: Tennessee was once thought of as the class of the SEC, Georgia had home court, Vanderbilt has future NBA player Scotty Pippen, Jr., and West Virginia had a rugged frontcourt.
South Carolina? Not so much.
The beleaguered Gamecocks, beset by COVID-19 problems so profound that they went nearly the full month of December without seeing the floor, found a new rock bottom for SEC play this season last Saturday, getting drilled by previously winless Vanderbilt — and by 12 points in a game that wasn’t really that close.