March 17, 2009

Recap | Box Score

South Carolina Head Coach Darrin Horn
Opening Statement…
“Obviously this is not the way we wanted our game to go. I really credit Davidson. They showed tonight why they’re a team that’s won an awful lot of games in the last few years. They are an extremely tough basketball team. (Stephen) Curry showed why he is going to be a first-round draft pick probably this year if he wants to. He made a lot of big plays.”

“We never could seem to get any flow going offensively. And then in the second half when we did make it a one-possession game and get right there, we couldn’t put the combination of stops and buckets together to find a way to pull it out. We don’t want this to take away from what this team has done this year. There are a lot of positives to take from this year, and these two guys (Branden Conrad and Zam Fredrick) here have been phenomenal. They have meant so much to our program. They helped us lay a foundation that we feel like we can really build on.”

On Devan Downey being sick…
“He had the sniffles. I sure hope it didn’t affect his play. He sat in the first half because we were trying to give him rest and make sure he was guarding at the level we wanted him to. He still ended with 31 minutes, which is only a couple shy of his average.”

On turnaround time after the SEC Tournament
“I was worried about that, but we practiced really well yesterday and had a crisp walk-through. We came out and defensively we were really flying around on the first half. It hurt us really bad that we didn’t get anything going offensively in the first half. And I think because of that, we never really got in a flow, and we had to fight so hard defensively to stay in the game without making baskets. I think as the game wore on, it wore on us.”

On the Davidson big players vs. South Carolina big players…
“I think my opening statement sums it up. This [Davidson] is a team that knows how to win. They’ve been at the top of their league; they’ve advanced in the NCAA Tournament. I thought that those guys went out and played like that tonight in terms of doing the little things. I thought Mike Holmes was a bright spot for us tonight in terms of giving us some presence, and he had a couple of big buckets late, in the last 10 minutes of the second half.”

On being worried about how the team would respond…
“Like we’ve talked about from day one, we’re in the process of building something. Everything that we do is for the first time, and we really just try to talk to them about how to deal with that. We talked about it Sunday night. When you look at the seeds, in my opinion, we were never in the discussion. Let’s move forward with what we do have, and this was an opportunity for postseason after some really positive things.”

On the atmosphere in the arena…
“Our crowd has been awesome. They came in and were loud. It was as loud like it was full. It’s been phenomenal. Our students had to pay to come in tonight and look at the turnout. You know college kids don’t have money. Our fans are the best.”

Branden Conrad
On Stephen Curry….
“Obviously he’s a great player. We knew that coming in. He showed that tonight in the way he played. He’s a great player. I grew up playing with him in Charlotte, so I knew that all along. I think the whole country knows that.”

Zam Fredrick
On emotions after the game…
“I had a lot of thoughts. It was my last game as a college basketball player. I’m not going to be putting on a uniform again, not this one at least. The atmosphere and all the people that come and watch, family and friends, there were just a whole lot of emotions at one time.

On if there was a hangover from the SEC Tournament…
“No, not at all. We got our minds ready for this game. It was a nationally televised game against one of the best players in the country. If you can’t get yourself up for that, then you’re not really a basketball player. We had three days off to prepare for Davidson. We got our minds right and focused on the team we had to play. There was no hangover and no excuses.