Story byAssociated PressWed, January 7, 2026 at 2:32 AM UTC·1 min readBATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Elijah Strong scored a career-high 30 points, and South Carolina built a big first-half lead that held off LSU for a 78-68 victory on Tuesday night. South Carolina (10-5, 1-1 Southeastern Conference) rebounded from an 83-71 loss to Vanderbilt, while LSU (12-3, 0-2) has lost consecutive games. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Gamecocks built a 25-point halftime advantage and led by double digits with about nine minutes left when LSU started a 12-3 run to pull to 66-60 with 6:22 remaining. Strong scored the next four points, and the Tigers didn't get closer. Strong shot 10 of 15 from the floor and made all four of his 3-point attempts.