East Tennessee State kept a four-point game going until 35 seconds in the game when South Carolina went ahead for the 71-66 win Sunday.
The victory was the Game-cocks’ first of the season, making them 1-0, and their first in the Carolina Center, their new stadium.
“It was a very good basketball game,” ETSU head coach Ed DeChellis said. “It’s a wonderful building. Both teams played physical. We just can’t turn the ball over 29 times and give up the amount of offensive rebounds that we did.”
“We played hard. We just didn’t make the big plays when we needed to.”
Gerald Fields scored 16 points to lead the Bucs. Fields was 6-11 from the floor and 3-4 behind the arc. He grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked three shots.
Ryan Lawson scored 13 points, going 4-6 from the floor and made three 3-pointers. Lawson also made seven assists.
Tiras Wade and Zakee Wadood tallied 11 points apiece. Wade was 5-12 and 4-5 from the foul line. Wadood had nine rebounds and four steals.
“Our kids came in here and battled and battled,” DeChellis said. “I’m not happy, but we gave it our best punch. This is a very good SEC basketball team. We just came up five points short.”
Chuck Eidson scored 19 points and had 10 rebounds, and Carlos Powell added 15 points and 10 rebounds as the Gamecocks (1-0) played in front of 14,922 fans, the school’s largest crowd for a men’s game.
The previous record for a South Carolina home game was 12,783 set in a 59-53 win over Clemson on Feb. 2, 1991.
“We fell prey to some things that actually bothered us last year. We must do a better job by ourselves,” South Carolina head coach Dave Odom said. “I’m particularly pleased knowing ETSU should be in the running for their conference championship. I thank my lucky stars for Carlos Powell and Chuck Eidson.”
The fans were nervous for most of the game, as the Buccaneers (1-1) led 59-55 after Field’s 3-pointer with 7:49 left.
“We had a little nervousness before the game,” Odom said. “This building is spectacular, but we must work our way up to play at its level. We must get our players in better shape.”
But Eidson and Tony Kitchings, who had nine points and 11 rebounds, got back-to-back tip-ins to tie it at 59. After the teams traded buckets, Powell gave South Carolina the lead for good with a 3-pointer that made it 64-61 with four minutes to go.
“We kept fighting to keep them out from under the basket,” DeChellis said. “But they made a big play here and there and it made the difference in the game.
The Buccaneers would manage two more baskets down the stretch — Tim Smith’s jumper that made it 64-63 with 3:41 to go, and Sam Oatman’s 3-pointer with 3.1 seconds left that cut the final margin to 71-66.
Fields, Wade and Wadood would all foul out in a game that had 37 fouls, 48 turnovers and a double-technical when Wadood and Rolando Howell got tied up under the basket late in the game.
“We got several guys out there at the end,” DeChellis said. “We didn’t get to the free-throw line enough. We needed to make some easy baskets.”
“We made some very foolish turnovers at times when we needed the ball.”
The win means South Carolina is 4-0 opening new arenas, going back to the 33-5 win over Olympia in the 1911 opener of the Carolina Gymnasium.
Sunday’s game wasn’t quite that easy. The Bucs, the Southern Conference’s Northern Division champions last year, didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by the new surroundings.
“There were some things that we did do,” Odom said. “We won the game. We’re always looking for toughness — you show your toughness by possession by possession. We missed enough lay-ups to put the game away three times.”
Kerbrell Brown got South Carolina’s first basket at the Carolina Center — a dunk off an assist by Eidson at 19:46. But the Gamecocks had trouble with the new rims after that, missing their next nine shots as ETSU took a 16-3 lead.
Then Powell came in. The sophomore hit a bucket with 13:44 left in the half and 30 seconds later, got the crowd screaming with a steal and lay-up whistled good after the Bucs were called for goaltending.
South Carolina ended the half on a 38-18 run to lead 41-34 at the break. The teams combined for 23 turnovers that half.
ETSU came out pressing in the second half, forcing five turnovers in the first six minutes to take a 51-45 lead. Fields made seven buckets in a row on an 18-7 run by the Bucs.

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