Brian: BC shook off the rust from a road loss to URI by drilling the Gamecocks 85-70. Trapani (23 points, 9 boards) and Paris (18 points) finished with nearly half of the Eagles 85 points, and BC shot over 50% from the field (33-64) and over 40% from beyond the arc (13-32).
Corey Raji had 16 points and 2 boards, while Jackson added 14 points, 6 boards and 5 assists.
The Eagles were leading by 28 with nine minutes left in the second half, and the 15-point margin of victory wasn't nearly indicative of how dominant the Eagles were. You were in attendance, getting to see your first in-person Eagles win in ... I don't know how long. What did you like / dislike from the Eagles performance?
Jeff: I liked that the Eagles were effortlessly dominant. Does that make sense? Sure, South Carolina is not as good as most of our ACC opponents but they are an SEC team and we did win on the road which will at least get noticed come NCAA tournament selection time. The game went by quickly with few fouls called on both sides and few timeouts used. After the about 12 minutes into the game, the outcome started becoming less and less in doubt.
South Carolina didn't have the fire power to make a run and BC never went on any significant drought from the field. Trapani was an important in the game because he shot the ball well and was an important factor on defense. If he had not had as good of a game as he did the game could've been a lot closer especially because Jackson really did not play nearly up to his potential. It's great to see a double digit win with a 28 point second half lead when your best player has a bad game. Because of that there really is reason to be optimistic the rest of the season.
Brian: A lot of fans are saying that if Paris doesn't leave the Rhode Island game, BC would have pulled out the victory in Kingston. Paris has scored 7, 12, 19, 7, 12, 22, 18, 14, 2 and 18 points over the last 10 games. A 4.8 points per game player a year ago, Biko is averaging over 11 a game this season. How impressed/surprised are you with Biko Paris 2.0? Are you more impressed, or frustrated that we haven't seen these aspects of his game during his first three years on the Heights?
Jeff: We can say all we want about if Paris had played more against Rhode Island or if Rubin had played against Yale but there is really no point to either. Especially once we play some bigger teams, some of our starters are going to get into serious foul trouble and we'll have to find ways to win.
I'm not frustrated at all with Paris. He is scoring from completely different looks this season than he ever would have gotten in Skinner's offense. That tight flex didn't leave Paris with a lot of wide open looks and he still is not scoring inside a ton. Paris has certainly improved his shot which is great but I would say its more about the change in coaching that Paris is taking complete advantage of.