TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama’s Riley Norris hardly missed from outside and South Carolina struggled to hit from anywhere.
Norris hit his first seven 3-pointers and scored a career-high 27 points Wednesday night to lead the Alabama men’s basketball team to a 73-50 upset of previously unbeaten No. 19 South Carolina.
The Crimson Tide (10-5, 1-2 Southeastern Conference) got the first league win of Avery Johnson’s debut season in stunningly easy fashion. The upset leaves No. 10 SMU as the nation’s only unbeaten major college team.
“Incredible win for us,” Johnson said, adding that the Tide’s scout team had dominated the starters a day earlier.
The Gamecocks (15-1, 2-1) missed their first 12 shots of the second half and went more than 11 minutes without a field goal starting before the break. They ended an eight-minute scoring drought after halftime down 48-22.
South Carolina never cut it below 18 after that.
“I think we played awful,” said Michael Carrera, who led the Gamecocks with 14 points and 10 rebounds. “We played awful. Offensively and defensively, we played awful.”
Norris made the most of his first start of the season, shooting 8 of 11 on 3-pointers. He also grabbed seven rebounds. Justin Coleman added 14 points and six assists off the bench after Norris took his place.
Johnson decided to start Norris two days earlier, and was richly rewarded for that call. Norris shrugged off the performance, repeatedly giving credit to teammates for feeding him the ball.
The last time he got that hot in a game? “It’s been high school,” Norris said. “I don’t even remember, honestly.”
Coleman wasn’t surprised. “Riley’s a great shooter,” he said. “He’s one of the best shooters in the country so every time it leaves his hand, I always think it’s going in.”
The Gamecocks didn’t come close to their previous scoring low of 65 points. They were also outrebounded for only the second team and coach Frank Martin said his players “got beat to every ball.”
“They attacked us,” Martin said. “They did to us what we usually do to people, which is not let them run their offense.”
Norris hit a 3-pointer from a couple of feet beyond the arc to punctuate a 13-0 Alabama run to open the second half. It forced Martin to call time out, but the South Carolina shots never started falling.
Norris had led the Tide to a 35-22 halftime lead after hitting five consecutive 3-pointers in the first nine minutes.
Alabama didn’t need a big game from leading scorer Retin Obasohan, who had just four points.
South Carolina’s top scorer, Sindarius Thornwell, also struggled. He scored two points on 1-of-6 shooting. The Gamecocks were 19 of 53 (35.8 percent) from the field, including 3 of 18 from 3-point range (16.7 percent). They also were 9 of 17 from the free-throw line.
Norris matched his career-high of 18 points by halftime, triple his season average coming into the game. The sophomore already topped his previous high of five field goals in the half, going 6 of 8.
NOTE: Alabama football players Derrick Henry, Reggie Ragland and Kenyan Drake were honored during a first-half timeout two days after the Tide won the national title over another team from South Carolina, Clemson. “That was a big standing ovation that they got and it kept the energy in the building,” said Johnson, who was in Arizona for the championship game.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.