South Carolina ends losing streak to Vanderbilt, 86-76

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings didn’t have to think too hard to pinpoint why the Commodores lost this one.

Stallings watched, often in awe, as South Carolina guard Devan Downey almost single-handedly changed the game’s momentum and its outcome in the Gamecocks 86-76 victory on Wednesday night.

“He’s a guy that’s capable of taking over games and he took over this one in the second half,” Stallings said.

Downey scored 12 of his team-high 18 points in the last 11 minutes, helping the Gamecocks (15-4, 4-2 SEC) snap a five-game losing streak to Vanderbilt.

South Carolina set a number of benchmarks for first-year coach Darrin Horn.

The Gamecocks’ 15th win surpassed the 14 they posted in each of the previous two seasons. They won three straight regular-season games in the SEC for the first time since 2006. And they’ve marked themselves as players in an SEC race where hardly anyone has taken a stranglehold of the league this year.

Credit Downey as much as anyone.

The Commodores (12-8, 1-5) did a good job early in the game keeping Downey, the SEC’s second-leading scorer, off balance and off target.

Vanderbilt wiped out South Carolina’s 13-point lead, and led 49-48 on Brad Tinsley’s 3-pointer with 11:30 left.

Then Downey found his game and lifted the Gamecocks to victory.

He hit a pair of foul shots that regained the lead for South Carolina, then followed with a spinning jumper in the lane that made it 52-49. Downey added eight more points in what turned into a 22-7 Gamecocks’ run.

Downey closed the stretch with a driving layup to put the Gamecocks ahead 70-56, then gestured wildly to the cheering crowd when Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings called a timeout to regroup his club.

Vanderbilt, which hadn’t lost to South Carolina since 2006, never got closer than nine points the rest of the way.

“We couldn’t do anything with him as the game wore on,” Stallings said. “That’s what he does, he gets better as games go on and we know that. We were prepared for that, but we couldn’t stop him.”

Few teams have.

Downey was glad for the winning streak. Things get decidedly harder for South Carolina with upcoming road games with Kentucky and Florida.

The way South Carolina’s going, Downey thinks anything’s possible.

“That’s the whole key. I tell the team all the time, play hard and play with confidence and whatever happens happens,” Downey said.

Horn knows Downey’s importance. He was just as pleased how his team handled losing its first big lead and bouncing back to its second.

“It didn’t look like they got really worked up about it,” Horn said of the Gamecocks’ demeanor when Vanderbilt moved in front. “There was a great deal of confidence and we continued to play the way we needed to play. That was really good to see.”

Something else that had to be good for the Gamecocks chances — the Commodores did not start star sophomore A.J. Ogilvy, the team’s top scorer at 15 points a game who’s been battling a sore foot and flu-like symptons.

Ogilvy had just three points and was 0 of 3 from the floor before fouling out, his third straight game without double-figure points. He did have 11 rebounds in his 21 minutes.

Vanderbilt had hoped to wipe away the memory of its loss to Florida on Saturday when the Gators made an incredible 15 3-pointers in a 94-69 victory.

And then the Gamecocks started doing the same thing in a 14-0 first-half run.

Bradis Raley-Ross had two 3-pointers during the run, Zam Fredrick added a jumper from beyond the arc, Mike Holmes followed with an old fashioned three-point play and then Dominique Archie hit a 3-pointer to make it 24-13.

Vanderbilt’s young team had trouble handling the ball with 22 turnovers.

Downey had three of South Carolina’s nine steals and four of its eight assists.