South Carolina 74, Auburn 56: Freshman guard Duane Notice scored a career-high 23 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the Gamecocks to the first-round victory in the SEC tournament in Atlanta.

Brenton Williams scored 16 points, Laimonas Chatkevicius finished with 11 points and nine rebounds and Sindarius Thornwell added 10 points for No. 13 seed South Carolina (13-19), which will play No. 5 seed Arkansas (21-10) in Thursday's second round. The Gamecocks sank a season-high 11 3-pointers in 15 attempts for a season-best 73.3 percent beyond the arc.

Chris Denson scored 12 of his team-high 14 points in the second half and KT Harrell added 13 points for Auburn (14-16), which shot just 38.1 percent. The 12th-seeded Tigers were hammered on the boards, getting outrebounded 39-25 and allowing 22 second-chance points on 17 South Carolina offensive rebounds.

South Carolina, which was swept by Auburn during regular-season play, rode the 3-point shooting of Williams and Notice to a 38-26 halftime lead. Williams had 16 points, including 4-of-6 3-pointers, while Notice added 12 points and connected on all three of his treys.

The Gamecocks opened the second half with 3-pointers by Michael Carrera and Thornwell to extend the lead to 44-26. Auburn, which managed just two field goals over the first 10 minutes after intermission, never got closer than 12 points the rest of the way while losing its sixth straight SEC tourney game.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Sophomore F Mindaugas Kacinas grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds to go along with eight points for South Carolina. ... Denson (1,190) moved past Charles Barkley, who sat behind the Auburn bench, into 23rd place on the Tigers' all-time scoring list. ... C Asauhn Dixon-Tatum had seven blocks to go along with eight points for Auburn.