There was lots of stuff in Friday’s paper on the game, but here are a few more random thoughts and observations on the Gamecocks:

- I know some people are still harboring some NIT hopes, but it may be worse than a longshot. As has been said over and over, the NIT has never invited a sub-.500 team, and this is the year they really don’t want to. With the NCAA owning the NIT, and considering expanding the tournament to 96 teams, people will justifiably look at the NIT field and say those teams would be the NIT teams. What kind of statement does it make having a 15-16 team in there?

Also, I hear a lot of people saying the NIT would love to have someone like Devan Downey in there for marketing reasons. Thing is, as much as we know and love Downey’s game, he’s not quite a national name, as evidenced by the All-American lists you see coming out. (The best I’ve seen for Downey is a fourth-team honor by The Sporting News.)

- Assuming it was the final game, you really have to feel for the way the seniors went out: Downey with the final few minutes of missed shots and free throws, Brandis Raley-Ross going scoreless with five turnovers, and Evka Baniulis and Robert Wilder not even seeing the floor. Maybe playing in the CBI isn’t such a bad idea after all, just to send everyone out on a better note.

- Sam Muldrow’s game encapsulated his season: On, then off again. If he’s going to be a force next year – and he’s going to have to be for USC to have a chance – he needs to do it on a consistent basis. I know NBA scouts like Muldrow a lot (but don’t worry, for the 2011 draft, not 2010) and I agree with his potential. He just isn’t very consistent.

- Lakeem Jackson’s rebounding effort (14 rebounds, 10 of them offensive) shouldn’t be overlooked. He was a beast down there, and it’s another testament to his all-around abilities and potential. The problem is his free-throw shooting continues to be the story. He has said he makes them in practice, but just hasn’t been able to transfer it over to games. Maybe a new season will do him some good.

- Ramon Galloway took the ball up a lot on Thursday, with mixed results. At a minimum, he showed he can be a factor next year, but he still seems a bit limited, at least in terms that he’s not going to be a 15-20 points-per-game player. You can’t emphasize enough how different things are going to be next year, from one player carrying the load to next year possibly never knowing who will lead the team in scoring.

- Down the stretch, Johndre Jefferson and Stephen Spinella essentially got the playing time that Austin Steed and Baniulis had been getting. Baniulis is obviously gone, while Steed has another year of eligibility. I imagine he and the staff will have a serious talk about his role in the offseason.

- Even with the injuries, I’d say 15-16 is a disappointing result. But I’ll leave you with this: My buddies on the Kentucky beat say that, of all the places they went on the Kentucky road show this season, South Carolina remained far and away the best atmosphere.

Devan Downey made the 10-member All-District III team, which includes North and South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.

The other players to make the list:

Al-Farouq Aminu, Wake Forest
Trevor Booker, Clemson
Malcolm Delaney, Virginia Tech
Sylven Landesberg, Virginia
Artsiom Parakhouski, Radford
Jon Scheyer, Duke
Kyle Singler, Duke
Nolan Smith, Duke
Greivis Vasquez, Maryland

Vasquez was named the District Player of the Year, and Maryland’s Gary Williams got Coach of the Year.

My vote went to Vasquez for POY, but I voted Coastal Carolina’s Cliff Ellis as COY. I also voted for eight of the eventual 10 district team members; Booker and Singler were not on my ballot, instead I had Morgan State’s Reggie Holmes and VCU’s Larry Sanders. (Yeah, I guess I soft spot for the mid-majors.)

The USBWA All-America team will be announced Monday.

Coach Darrin Horn ruled out accepting an invitation to either of the third-tier postseason tournaments: The College Basketball Invitational and CollegeInsider.com Tournament.

“We want to compete and play in the NCAA tournament, and if we can’t do that then NIT with the changes that have been made still puts you in the top 100 in the country in this postseason,” Horn said Monday. “But anything beyond that is not anything that we’re gonna have an interest in.”

The CBI is a 16-team tournament in its third year of existence. The CIT is a 16-team tournament in its second year. No SEC team has accepted a bid to ether of those tournaments; South Carolina turned down the CBI two years ago after a 14-18 record.

I’ll have more on the Gamecocks’ chances for the NIT later.

The finalists are Kentucky’s John Wall, Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez, Duke’s Jon Scheyer,Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds, Kansas’ Sherron Collins and Ohio State’s Evan Turner.

I know what you’re saying: Turner is a point guard?

OK, I know what you’re really saying: No Downey? What a crock!

Look, I’ve killed a lot of trees the past two seasons writing about how great I think Downey is.And I’m still mulling over whether to give him my vote for SEC player of the year for the second straight year.

But the bottom line is the above players all play for teams heading to the NCAA tournament – in fact four of those teams could be No. 1 seeds and the other two will probably be top four seeds. And as Downey has said many times, a point guard is judged on how your team plays.  It’s not Downey’s fault his team is 15-15 – in fact it’s pretty much all his doing his team has six league wins. But it is what it is.

It means, as far as I can figure, South Carolina gets a rematch with Alabama on Thursday at 1 p.m.

The SEC hasn’t confirmed it, but  South Carolina is now the fifth seed out of the East, no matter what Georgia does at LSU. The teams have identical division records now, and USC owns the third tiebreaker, better record against the top team in the division (Kentucky).

Ironically, South Carolina’s upset of Vanderbilt also made Alabama the fourth seed. Alabama’s win over Auburn equaled both team’s records, and in an amazing quirk their tiebreakers go all the way to record vs. opponents from the other division.

Alabama and Auburn split their two games, had the same division record, and beat the same teams in the West. So then it goes to their record vs. East opponents, starting with the top seed and going down until there’s a difference – and it gets to No. 5 South Carolina, which beat Auburn but lost to Alabama.

Got all that?

The winner of the game will face Kentucky, the top seed out of the East.

If any of this changes, I’ll let you know, because like I said the SEC hasn’t confirmed it yet, and may not until Sunday.

The district teams are broken up by state, and the one I voted in was District III, which includes North and South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.

Here, presented without comment, is the ballot I turned in:

All-American

James Anderson, Oklahoma State

Sherron Collins, Kansas

DeMarcus Cousins, Kentucky

Devan Downey, South Carolina

Luke Harangody, Notre Dame

Wesley Johnson, Syracuse

Scottie Reynolds, Villanova

Evan Turner, Ohio State

Greveis Vasquez, Maryland

John Wall, Kentucky

Oscar Robertson (player of the year): Evan Turner, Ohio State

Henry Iba (coach of the year): Jim Boeheim, Syracuse

Freshman of year: John Wall, Kentucky

All-District III

Al-Farouq Aminu, Wake Forest

Malcolm Delaney, Virginia Tech

Devan Downey, South Carolina

Reggie Holmes, Morgan State

Sylven Landesberg, Virginia

Artsiom Parakhouski, Radford

Larry Sanders, VCU

Jon Scheyer, Duke

Nolan Smith, Duke

Greveis Vasquez, Maryland

District POY: Vasquez

District COY: Cliff Ellis, Coastal Carolina

The major object of Reilly’s ire is the idea of rushing the court. Whether it’s a good thing or overused, I’ll let Reilly argue. But here’s what he specifically said about the Gamecock fans storming the court after the win over Kentucky:

I’m talking to you, South Carolina. You RTC’d after beating Kentucky both this season and in 2005. It’s supposed to be “Hats in the air! War’s over!” Not “I really want a picture next to John Wall!”

OK, I honestly don’t know what he’s going for with the “war’s over” thing, but I’ll let that pass. Later, however, Reilly makes some stipulations for when storming the court is unjustifiable. Let’s see how many apply to South Carolina:

• You’ve won an NCAA title in the past 20 years. Um, no.

• You’ve been in the Final Four in the past five years. Again, um, no.

• The team you just beat is not in the top three. Kentucky was No. 1.

• Or is ranked within 15 rungs of you. (Somebody do the math for Wake.) And South Carolina was unranked.

• Or is really a football school. This includes Florida, Texas and Ohio State. Get over it. Strike four.

• You’ve beaten this same team in the past five years. Reilly has a point there, since it was actually USC’s third straight win over the Wildcats.

• You won the stupid game by more than 10 points. There is no such thing as a PRTC (Premeditated Rush The Court.) It was a six-point win.

• You’re a university and you just beat a college. Both universities.

• Coach K comes to your coach’s clinic. A mystery to me.

• You have a dead-mortal-lock lottery pick on your team. Pretty sure Devan Downey is not a lottery pick.

• Your team has appeared in a recent “One Shining Moment.” Again, no.

So, according to that 10-point formula, South Carolina had nine reasons to rush the court. The verdict: An acceptable rush.

The Gamecocks will be the sixth seed out of the East and play Thursday at 9:45 p.m., unless they pull an upset Saturday at No. 13 Vanderbilt. The SEC hasn’t released official scenarios yet, but by my reckoning if USC did win that game, it would get the fifth seed no matter what Georgia did against LSU, thanks to tiebreakers.

(Georgia and USC split, and would have the same division record, and then USC would get the third tiebreaker, best record against the top team in the division. The Gamecocks beat Kentucky, if you recall.)

As for the West, it’s very much a jumble. Four different teams – Mississippi, Arkansas, Auburn or Alabama – could end up being South Carolina’s first-round opponent.

Mississippi hosts LSU tonight, and if the Rebels win they will be 8-7, and in second place in the West alone. But it has to play at Arkansas (7-8) on Saturday, and a loss would give the second seed to the Razorbacks, who would own a sweep over the Rebels. That scenario would leave Mississippi as the third seed.

But if Ole Miss beat Arkansas, that would leave Arkansas 7-9, and it would depend on whether Auburn (6-9) won at Alabama. If it did, Auburn would own the tiebreaker (division record) and would move up to the third seed.

There’s also a scenario where USC gets the fifth seed and Alabama gets the fourth out of the West, creating a rematch of Wednesday night’s game. But my head is hurting already too much, so let’s just deal with that in the unlikely event it happens.

Horn started off by comparing the everyday effort he sees from Alabama – the opponent on Wednesday – with what he saw from the Gamecocks on Saturday. With the exception of the game at Tennessee, a 26-point loss, Horn felt his players have battled and made runs – which they did not do against Mississippi State.

“I thought we played like a team that didn’t think winning was important and maybe thought they were gonna lose,” Horn said. “I”m just telling you guys we’re not gonna have that. That’s not gonna be a part of what our program is gonna be about, and we’re not gonna do that. We have no excuses tomorrow night not to compete and play incredibly hard. It’s Senior Night.”

Horn said he told the team that playing time on Wednesday would be related to effort, and not whether you were a senior or a freshman.

“I take unbelievable privilege in being the head coach here, at an outstanding university, in this league, with unbelievable fans,” Horn said. “That means something to me. And it’s going to mean something to our team. And when you go out and do what we did on Saturday, to me you disrespect the game, the university, the scholarship gifts that you’ve been given.”

Asked what prompted him to say all that a few days later, if it was watching film or whatever, Horn said it was merely “in general watching the game,” and that anyone watching closely would agree with his assessment.

The coach felt the current five-game losing streak, and players getting down a result of it, could have been “a part” of the performance. But he still wants to foster “a culture of winning” where a one-game deviation from that was unacceptable.

Could it have been playing Thursday-Saturday for the first time?

“If you want to make excuses, it can be. But we’re not going to make excuses,” Horn said. “But again there’s no excuse for not playing hard. You might not play well. We might not play well tomorrow, we might not win tomorrow, but there is no excuse for not competing and playing hard and giving your best effort.”

This is a team that is out of NCAA tournament consideration, and needs to win out in Nashville to make it. So Horn was asked about the team’s motivation.

“I think that’s part of the challenge. It needs to be pride. It needs to be defending your home court and winning at home,” Horn said. “It needs to be finishing strong. It needs to be things that sometimes there aren’t even a reward for.”

Yes, he will seek a sixth year of eligibility. And yes, if he gets it he will return to the South Carolina men’s basketball team next year.

But he also understood that it was “50-50.” Now the question becomes on what basis the appeal will be made.

Coach Darrin Horn said the team and the USC athletics department are pouring through over 600 cases of sixth-year appeals, both successful and unsuccessful. What they’re looking for is a precedent that would apply to Archie.

Most times, the appeals are based on a player having at least two seasons missed because of injury. But Archie seemed to take that off the table Monday when he was asked directly about whether he was injured his true freshman season, when he redshirted.

“I had some nagging stuff, not anything outstanding,” Archie said.

(Published stories from 2005 and 2006 about Archie’s redshirt do not mention an injury, only that Archie and the coaching staff wanted him to redshirt because he was behind Renaldo Balkman, Tarence Kinsey, Brandon Wallace and Dwayne Day.)

Still, you never know with the NCAA. It’s possible that the fact Archie has graduated will help his cause. Who knows. But at this point I would say a 50-50 chance of getting the sixth year is being optimistic.

But going along with the “who knows” theory, here’s what the NCAA rulebook says, word for word, on what you need to get a sixth year:

30.6.1.1 Circumstances Beyond Control.

Circumstances considered to be beyond the control of the student-athlete or the institution and do not cause a participation opportunity to be used shall include, but are not limited to, the following:   (Adopted:  8/10/94, Revised: 10/12/95) (a) Situations clearly supported by contemporaneous medical documentation, which states that a student-athlete is unable to participate in intercollegiate competition as a result of incapacitating physical or mental circumstances; (b) The student-athlete is unable to participate in intercollegiate athletics as a result of a life-threatening or incapacitating injury or illness suffered by a member of the student-athlete’s immediate family, which clearly is supported by contemporaneous medical documentation; (Revised: 1/9/06) (c) Reliance by the student-athlete upon written, contemporaneous, clearly erroneous academic advice provided to the student-athlete from a specific academic authority from a collegiate institution regarding the academic status of the student-athlete or prospective student-athlete, which directly leads to that individual not being eligible to participate and, but for the clearly erroneous advice, the student-athlete would have established eligibility for intercollegiate competition; (Revised: 10/9/96) (d) Natural disasters (e.g., earthquake, flood); and

(e) Extreme financial difficulties as a result of a specific event (e.g., layoff, death in the family) experienced by the student-athlete or by an individual upon whom the student-athlete is legally dependent, which prohibit the student-athlete from participating in intercollegiate athletics. These circumstances must be clearly supported by objective documentation (e.g., decree of bankruptcy, proof of termination) and must be beyond the control of the student-athlete or the individual upon whom the student-athlete is legally dependent.