KU vs. South Carolina basketball notebook

By J-W Staff Reports     Jan 7, 2007

¢ South Carolina, enrollment 27,065, is located in Columbia, S.C. Nickname is Gamecocks. Colors are Garnet and Black. Conference is Southeastern.

¢ South Carolina has a three-game winning streak against top-10 teams. Last year, USC beat Florida when the Gators were ranked fifth and sixth. In 2005, USC beat Kentucky when the Wildcats were No. 3.

¢ The highest-ranked team USC has defeated is No. 2 North Carolina, 68-66, on Feb. 14, 1969, in Charlotte. USC was ranked No. 19 at the time.

¢ The Gamecocks beat Southern Cal, 80-74, in overtime in Los Angeles. KU beat USC, 72-62, on Dec. 4 in Allen Fieldhouse.

¢ Including the regular-season finale last season at Auburn, South Carolina has won 19 of its last 22 games. This streak includes last season’s wins at Florida State, at Cincinnati, against Michigan and Louisville at Madison Square Garden and this season’s victories at Southern California, at Baylor and at home against College of Charleston. The three losses came against NCAA Champion Florida in the SEC title game and losses this season at UC-Irvine and vs. Clemson.

¢ Both KU and South Carolina have won six straight games.

¢ KU graduate Kevin Harlan will broadcast today’s game for CBS with Bill Raftery as color announcer.

¢ KU leads the Big 12 with 7.71 blocked shots per game. KU has recorded two 10-plus blocked shots games with 10 against Rhode Island and a school-record 15 versus Toledo.

¢ The Jayhawks are second in the league in scoring margin at plus-19.4, rebound average at 40 and steals at 9.21 and third in rebound margin at plus-7.3 and assists at 17.5.

¢ Kansas’ bench has outscored its opponent’s bench in each of the last six games by a 167-57 margin. KU’s bench outscored Rhode Island’s 42-8 in its last game and has outscored all foes, 326-178.

¢ Kansas has held opponents to less than 50 percent shooting in 20-straight games. The last opponent to shoot better than 50 percent was Texas (55.1 percent) on Feb. 25, 2006. Kansas has held 49 of its last 50 opponents to under 50 percent from the field.

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