Turnovers were the achilles heel for Georgia as they went head-to-head against South Carolina on Wednesday night at the Steg. This game was the first SEC game at home this season for the Dawgs as they fell short losing 67-61. 

The leading scorer for the matchup was Yante Maten. He banked 18 points and ten rebounds. This game was his fourth double-double of the season. Maten scored the crucial three-pointer late in the second half to keep the Dawgs in the game. He also crossed a major milestone in his career as he scored his 1,000th career point. The other notable scorers were J.J. Frazier with 16 points and Juwan Parker adding 12 points.

The Gamecocks proved to be a tough matchup for the Dawgs as they are every season. P.J. Dozier put up 24 points for South Carolina, and their defense played hard as well; they caused Georgia to turn the ball over 16 times to their eight, scoring 18 points off of them.

As a whole, Georgia shot 36.2 percent from the floor and only made six shots in the second half. A majority of the points came from the free-throw line, as Georgia went 23-30 shooting 76.7 percent. The leaders of the team, Maten and Frazier, both went cold during the game. Maten shot just 4-12 from the floor and Frazier 3-10. If these two could have gotten some shots to fall, the game would have been a different story. Even if they had not, if the Dawgs held on to the ball and not coughed it up so much, they would have won. Turnovers proved costly for the Dawgs and are something they must improve on.

“We thought it would be a rock `em, sock `em fight, and it was,” Coach Fox said. “We didn’t start the second half well. Then, we got back in it, but we didn’t rebound it well late. However, give South Carolina all the credit for the victory. They played well.”

Georgia returns to work on Saturday to host Missouri at 1:00 p.m.; the game will air on the SEC Network.