South Carolina’s senior forward Chris Silva put on a show at Reed Arena on Tuesday with a 22 point, 17 rebound performance in rout to a 71-54 victory over the Texas A&M men’s basketball team.
The Aggies (13-16, 6-11 SEC) struggled with South Carolina (15-15, 10-7 SEC) early in the contest, allowing the Gamecocks to take a 16-6 lead with 14:30 left in the first period. Sophomore guard Jay Jay Chandler and junior guard Wendell Mitchell led a 18-point comeback over the next nine minutes of the first half to make it 27-24.
A&M kept up with the Gamecocks for the rest of the period, but would go to the locker room down 39-34. Senior guard Hassani Gravett led South Carolina shooting 8-of-10 from beyond the arc in the first half with three three-pointers, and finished the game with four.
“We’re not a bad shooting team,” South Carolina head coach Frank Martin said. “You look at our numbers during conference season we’ve shot pretty good. We’re fortunate that we made so many three’s in the first half.”
In the second half A&M wouldn’t be able to come back after the Gamecocks took a quick double digit lead just three minutes into the half. Midway into the period, the Aggies would go through another scoring drought, allowing South Carolina to take a 15-point lead. A&M would finish with only seven made shots in this half.
Mitchell finished the game with 15 points and six rebounds for the Aggies, along with sophomore guard and forward Savion Flagg who finished the game with 14 point and 11 rebounds for a double-double performance.
Shooting from deep proved to be a challenge for A&M, as the team finished 5-of-23 from beyond the arc. Only three players would finish with three-pointers.
“Obviously [shooting] from the three-point line has been a problem for us,” A&M head coach Billy Kennedy said. “Their post guys made seven three’s, it’s really hard for us to guard them. Offensively, we didn’t shots from more than three or four guys.”
Silva grabbed half of the Gamecocks’ 34 rebounds, breaking his college record of 15. The senior forward also shot 8-of-9 from the floor, including a perfect 4-of-4 from deep.
“It’s big,” Silva said about his performance. “I mean, the [opposing] players gotta respect me when I step on the [three-point line], they gotta guard me.”
Chandler finished with 11 points and four rebounds after tweaking his shoulder in the first half, but still ended up playing 26 minutes against the Gamecocks. Chandler said that South Carolina’s biggest threat was their three-point game.
“They were just knocking down three’s,” he said. “Probably the most three’s they’ve hit all year. We just struggled guarding the three-point line on their big men. We’ll just watch film on it and execute.”
A&M heads to Starkville for the regular season finale with Mississippi State on Saturday. Tipoff is set for 1 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN2.