Wednesday, 04/18/2012

No. 28 South Carolina (14-7, 5-6 SEC) enters the 2012 SEC Tournament holding the No. 6 seed and will face No. 11-seeded Kentucky on Thursday at 9 a.m. CT in Oxford, Miss. It is the second time in three years the Gamecocks and Wildcats have played in the first round, with the two also meeting in Athens, Ga., in 2010. South Carolina won that match-up as the No. 5 seed. South Carolina has a 17-14 edge in the all-time series with UK and has won six in a row versus the Wildcats. Earlier this season, the Gamecocks scored a 6-1 victory over Kentucky in Columbia, S.C.

The Gamecocks have an all-time record of 18-20 in the SEC Tournament with their best showing coming in 2002 when South Carolina hosted the event for the first and only time in school history. The Gamecocks reached the finals that season and lost to Florida. In 2010, South Carolina made the semifinals as the No. 5 seed after upsetting Georgia in the quarterfinals on the Bulldogs' home courts.