The scheduling gods haven’t done a ton of favors to Justin Gainey in his first year as head coach, but he did get a nice break in the ACC-SEC Challenge: NC State is going to host South Carolina, which is coming off a 13-19 season.
South Carolina is going to look entirely different this season, of course, in this new era of immediate remodeling, but it’s still not going to be a very good team. The Gamecocks finished last season at No. 96. in the Pomeroy Ratings.
NC State’s basketball history against
South Carolina is not extensive, but some of it I remember, mostly against my will. When I heard about this matchup, I immediately thought about that one time in college that I saw these teams play (as one does), but also needed to go back and verify that it really did happen. Which it did.
Julius Hodge scored 26 points in that game, and NC State ran about 5.5 guys deep. I could not tell you one single thing about it. If I had known at that time how important Julius Hodge was going to be, then I’d have some images from that game, and all the others, I’m sure. They’ll happily hand you a banana ticket but withhold the time machine, and so it goes.
