COLUMBIA, S.C. - Tennessee's February free fall ended with a resounding thud at South Carolina.
The fifth loss in seven games this month for the basketball Volunteers was their most lopsided of the season, replacing the previous one that happened 11 days earlier.
The Gamecocks broke out of a slump of their own by racing to an 18-point lead in the first half and emphatically answering Tennessee's surge to complete the season sweep of the Vols with an 82-55 Southeastern Conference rout at Colonial Life Arena on Saturday afternoon.
"After you get your butt kicked, you kind of want to put your head down," Vols freshman Grant Williams said, "but in order to get stronger you've just got to keep moving and take it as it was a bad night and move on from it.
"Let it sink in one night, and then the next day forget about it and get ready to get started for the next game."
After winning four straight games to end January and enter the NCAA tournament discussion, Tennessee (15-14, 7-9) enters the final week of the regular season fighting to maintain a winning record and remain in position to land a National Invitation Tournament spot.
Abysmal guard play gave the Vols no chance against the Gamecocks (21-8, 11-5), who held them to 60 or fewer points for the fifth time in nine meetings under coach Frank Martin.
The Vols finished with more turnovers (20) than field goals (18) and recorded a season- low three assists.
"The last time we played (South Carolina), I think we had 22 turnovers," Vols forward Kyle Alexander said. "We still didn't do much better. It's hard to win games when you have 20 turnovers. I know I had a couple of them on a traveling violation I had, and I got called for an illegal screen. It's a team thing."
Eight of Tennessee's turnovers came in the opening minutes, and South Carolina went on a 19-2 run over a span of nearly seven minutes midway through the first half to take a 27-9 lead.
Thanks to a switch to a zone defense and greater urgency, the Vols cut their deficit to eight by halftime.
Early in the second half Robert Hubbs III, who led the Vols with 16 points, made a jumper to cut Tennessee's deficit to four (38-34), but the Gamecocks responded with a 17-4 run powered by a trio of Duane Notice 3s, the third following Alexander's missed dunk.
Tennessee never threatened again.
"They're back on their heels a little bit, but we're going to regroup," said Tennessee coach Rick Barnes. "We have to. We've got to. We've two games left, and then you've got the conference tournament. But we need to get everybody playing up to the level (they're capable of), and that's my job to do that. As a coaching staff we're going to do it."
The five players who finished the first half and started the second half - Shembari Phillips, Admiral Schofield, Hubbs, Williams and Alexander - played between 26 and 35 minutes for the game, while no other Vol played more than 15.
"They made some mistakes," Barnes said, "but you could tell they were in the fight, for as long as it was a fight.
"When we had to go to our bench in the second half, we just went backwards every time. Our frontcourt, all the pressure's on those guys. We've got to get something out of the backcourt."
Tennessee switched up its starting lineup hoping to jumpstart its backcourt production, but the move didn't pan out.
Kwe Parker got his first career start after playing 14 second-half minutes against Vanderbilt, while Lamonte Turner replaced Jordan Bone, who played just one second-half minute against the Commodores, at point guard.
The three freshmen combined for 11 points on 3-of-11 shooting and six turnovers with zero assists.
"You've just got to keep playing and every day work on you and continue to get better," said Phillips, a sophomore. "In a tough couple of games like this in this stretch going on, you can't get down. This is adversity and you've just got to fight through it. It's as simple as that."
Williams scored all eight of his points to fuel the Vols' surge as they outscored the Gamecocks 21-11 in the final 8:18 of the first half, but the freshman was scoreless in the second half.
"It's tough, and nobody likes losing," he said, "but we know it's not over yet. We still have two games left and we also have the SEC tournament. We're still going, we're keeping our heads up and we're going to try and persevere through it."