The South Carolina Gamecocks, fresh off advancing to the Super Regionals in 2023, have hit a bump in the road in the 2024 season and it may be time to hit the panic button for Mark Kingston's squad.

South Carolina did just knock off the North Carolina Tar Heels in a big mid-week game, but the Gamecocks are still struggling a bit in conference play. Mark Kingston's squad is 22-10 on the season, but are 6-6 in conference play, and are reeling. South Carolina swept Vanderbilt in a series at home, but outside of that, they have dropped series to Alabama, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M.

There are several reasons to this, both on the offensive and defensive side of the ball for the Gamecocks, so let's look into those reasons.

On the offensive side of things, the Gamecocks cannot seem to find any sense of consistency from anyone not named Ethan Petry, Kennedy Jones, and Dylan Brewer. Those three are leading the Gamecocks in batting average and outside of those three, it's been inconsistent everywhere else.

Strikeouts have been a major issue for the Gamecock lineup, as every starter outside of Brewer, is above 20 punchouts. Carolina will need to find some sort of offensive approach if they want to get back to the team they were at the beginning of the season when they were scoring runs in bunches.

From a pitching and defensive perspective side of things, it has a been a whirlwind for the Gamecocks. Eli Jones has solidified himself as the Friday night starter for Carolina, but everything outside of that has turned into "Johhny Whole staff" the last few weekends.

The Gamecocks have tried several different guys in the Saturday and Sunday role, and it just appears that nothing will be sticking for the long term. In a conference like the SEC, pitching is everything, and the Gamecocks will need to find some consistency out of their weekend starters if they want to get back on the right track.

The schedule doesn't get any easier for Carolina, as their next three SEC series are against Florida, Arkansas, and Kentucky. Quite the gauntlet for the Gamecocks, and it will be a true test to see what the boys in Columbia are made of.