The South Carolina men's basketball team suffered a 59-48 loss on the road at Vanderbilt on Wednesday in SEC play. Here are the hightlights of the game:

South Carolina returns to Colonial Life Arena to host Tennessee on Saturday. USC has a record now of 10-17 overall and 2-11 in conference play.

Here is the SEC Men's baskeballt power poll ballot for last week.  Please let us know where are votes went wrong and do check out the highlights from last week....

The South Carolina men's basketball team (10-16, 2-10 SEC) travels to Vanderbilt (19-8, 8-4 SEC) on Wednesday for an 8 p.m. ET contest at Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville.

Here is Coach Horn talking about the game:

This morning I was catching up on some daily South Carolina Gamecocks sports reading and came across a story from Darryl Slater of the Post & Courier about how close USC basketball is to setting a record.

Well, this is not the type record you want your school to have.  See the Gamecocks are sitting at 2-10 in SEC league play and must win at least two more games to avoid the label of having the WORST SEC record of all-time.  Currently, the record is 3-13.

The Gamecocks have four regular season games remaining, those are against: Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Mississippi State and Georgia.

So out of those four, who can USC beat?

Let's discuss each opponent and the chances:

Arkansas defeated the South Carolina Gamecocks by the score of 76-65.  The loss moves USC's record to 9-15 overall, 1-9 in SEC play.  The 'Cocks have lost five straight and nine of the last ten games.

The Gamecocks had no answer for Arkansas's B.J. Young as he coasted to a 27-point effort. USC got good effort from Damontre Harris, who had 12 points to lead the Gamecocks and Malik Cooke added 11 in the loss.

USC played well to start but after the Razorbacks went on a 11-0 run to close the first half, the game never went in the favor of USC.  The 'Cocks just could not get over the hump.  They fought hard but it was not enough late.

USC clinched a losing SEC season for the third straight season and will have the 14th losing league season in the program's 21 years in the SEC.

South Carolina returns to Colonial Life Arena for two contests next week, the first against Georgia on Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. on CSS, before hosting LSU on Feb. 18, at 1:30 p.m. on the SEC Network.

South Carolina (9-13, 1-7 SEC) clashes with Tennessee (11-12, 3-5 SEC) in a mid-week showdown and here is your quick preview of the basketball game.

 Game Info
Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Tipoff: 8 p.m. ET
Location: Knoxville, Tenn.
Television: SEC Network (check local listings)

Now on to the preview....

This South Carolina Gamecocks blog joins forces with other SEC bloggers to vote in the SEC Basketball Power Poll.

Here are is our ballot for the week ending Feb. 5, 2012:

The South Carolina men's hoops program is having a very tough year and here is some video highlights of the last three games.

We have been out-of-pocket in our coverage of the hoop's squad mainly due to National Signing Day but also it seems that it is the same thing each outing.  Hard to write about the losses each time out.

Let's hope the recent loss to Kentucky was the bottom of this travel down to the valley after reaching somewhat of the mountain top in winning the SEC East a few years back.

South Carolina is now 9-13 overall and 1-7 in SEC play. They’ll take on Tennessee in Knoxville on Wednesday night. Tip off is set for 8 ET.

Here are video highlights of the last three losses...

This season isn’t going as Gamecock fans hoped.  In fact, the last few seasons haven’t gone as fans had hoped.  The team hasn’t made the NCAA tournament since 2004 and hasn’t won a tournament game in a much longer time than that.  There are many problems.  Today, I want to focus on the Colonial Life Arena.

The CLA was built specifically for the South Carolina Gamecocks’ basketball programs.  Well, that’s not completely accurate.  The Arena was built for, among other things, the basketball teams.  It was also built for the city of Columbia to host concerts, circuses and other entertainment events in addition to basketball.  It was hoped it could serve as a host for an NCAA tournament game.¹

In fairness to the designers of the CLA, it has served masterfully as a mixed use facility, but as a home for South Carolina Gamecocks basketball, it has failed.  That's not the leading reason for the program's recent struggles, but it may be a factor.

Attendance for basketball games hasn't increased dramatically since the last season in the Frank McGuire Arena.²  However the size of the arena has increased from 12,000 to 18,000.  This has given the impression that the basketball programs aren't supported by the fans very well.  That carries the implication that the program isn't doing well.  Whether that's true or not, it doesn't help the current players or the recruits.

Large numbers of unused seats make the arena a ripe target for an opposing fan base to take over.  Whenever Kentucky comes to town, the CLA sells out. Unfortunately for Carolina, it's mostly filled with blue.  This season when Ohio State came into town, the Gamecock fans, the players and coaches had to endure the Buckeye fans' O-H-I-O chants that made the game feel like a neutral site game.

Perception can become reality.  If our arena looks like the fans don't support the team, other fans will decide they have better things to do with their time.  If the arena feels cavernous and empty, recruits will decide to play in front of a big crowd, or at least a packed house.

Of course, there is little we can do about the arena at this point.  There's nothing physically wrong with it, and it would be way too expensive to build a smaller, more fitting arena.  But, when you find yourself watching the Gamecocks end up on the short end of the scoreboard and you find yourself wondering how this could keep happening, look at the Colonial Life Arena and remember the role it can play in the development of a program.  Remember that too when it comes time to build another facility for any of the other programs.

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¹ Due to the Confederate Flag on the State House, and later State House grounds, the NAACP has boycotted the state of South Carolina.  The NCAA has honored this boycott, and no NCAA tournament events have been held at the Arena, nor are any planned.

² The last season at the Frank McGuire Arena averaged 10,435 fans per game in 2001-02.  At the CLA the lowest season average was 9,091 in 2005-06; The highest season attendance per game was 12,941 in 2002-03.

The USC Gamecocks blew their best chance of winning an SEC game this season at Auburn yesterday.  They lost to the Tigers by the score of 63-52.  

This is the second straight year that the Gamecocks have lost to Auburn. Some national pundits considered Auburn the worst major D-1 program last year and of course they beat USC at home.  Now this.  Auburn had been labeled bottom tier and they made USC look silly on the court in their last match-up.  Well, the Gamecocks did not help themselves in the second half of that game but the point is, the Gamecocks lost to a team yet again they should have beat.

At the beginning of the season, I personally thought that Coach Horn would earn one more year to figure it out at South Carolina, but this team is bad and it doesn't look like it is going to get better anytime soon.  

Who and what is to blame for this team being as bad as they are?  I think there are a few factors that have played a major role in this team stinking it up so far.  Recruiting, developing players, style of play, and the conference talent getting better.  I continue....