Nov. 13, 2009

Recap | Final Stats

South Carolina Head Coach Darrin Horn
Opening Statement…
All in all, I think it was a good opener for us. It’s the kind of opener you want to have in terms of effort and the energy level was really good. I really thought we were able to maintain that throughout the game. Relative to the circumstances of the game, a lot of guys did a lot of positive things, which was really good to see. I thought the combination of Sam (Muldrow) and Mike (Holmes) inside was good. When you can get your interior to combine for 27 (points) and 11 (rebounds) every night, I think that’s the kind of production that’s going to help us. The guys off the bench came in and did some good things. One of the things we were really pleased with in the first half was when we subbed, our level actually went up a little bit. I thought we did some really good things. All in all, a lot of positives to take away from this. It’s still early. There are a lot of things we need to work on. We’ll evaluate the film and we have a couple quick days to get ready for Monday. Tonight’s the first of five (games) in nine days. So, it’s coming pretty fast. There was an unbelievable crowd too. It was a terrific crowd for the opener. There was a great turnout by the Garnet Army for a Friday night, a season opener, you just can’t say enough about how much we appreciate the support of our fans, especially the Garnet Army.

On the sense of urgency to start the game…
I think we came out focused and came out with a great deal of energy and emotion, which is how we want to play all the time. Again, relative to how the game went, for the most part we did a good job of maintaining that throughout. We got to work on some things that we’ll be using, in terms of lineups and the zone defense, which we’ll employ some. I think all in all, a lot of positives, in terms of our approach to take out of this.

On first-half fouls…
We want to play aggressive. The important thing is that we got to the line a lot ourselves in the first half, and we shot a good percentage. When you play this way there are nights when that’s going to happen. The ones that we’ll be concerned about, when we evaluate the film, that happened because we weren’t disciplined or we were late to our location. In terms of aggressiveness, we’re going to foul some people. We’re an aggressive defensive team.

On the play of Johndre Jefferson…
The thing that we loved about Johndre (Jefferson) when we recruited him is that he didn’t get a lot of touches offensively. He didn’t get a whole lot tonight, unless it was off penetration, but every night, he found a way to get points, rebounds, and blocked shots. That’s just the kind of game that he has. He fits in pretty well with what we do. It’s his second night out now when his production of doing those things is a positive.

On the play of Devan Downey…
Not only was he, but our whole team was really impressive offensively early on. That’s the way we want to play. We maybe took a few too many perimeter shots early, but they were good shots. I thought he did a really good job of being aggressive in terms of attacking. The shots that he took were really good shots. The only thing that would be a negative from our point guard, in general, is that you don’t need eight turnovers between the two point guards.