Feb. 4, 2003

South Carolina will make its first of two trips out of state this week, traveling to Baton Rouge, La., to play the LSU Tigers in the Maravich Center at 8 pm (ET) on Wednes., Feb. 5. Both teams are in search of their second SEC win, with USC and LSU both bringing in 1-6 league records.

South Carolina won last year’s meeting, 66-53, in Columbia Feb. 20, 2002 and have won the last two and eight of the last 10 meetings. USC is 3-2 in Baton Rouge.

The LSU game will be carried on the radio airwaves by the Gamecock Sports Network (for radio listings see page 13). Charlie McAlexander (play-by-play) and Casey Manning (color) will call the action on more than 25 stations in the Palmetto State and world-wide on the internet at www.uscsports.com.

The game will be televised by Jefferson-Pilot Sports to a Southeastern United States audience. Tim Brando and Joe Dean, Jr. will make the call from Baton Rouge. The game will be seen in the Palmetto State on WMMP-TV (Charleston), WIS-TV (Columbia), WFXB-TV (Florence), WBSC-TV (Greenville/ Spartanburg) and WRDW-TV (Augusta).

This Carolina’s ninth television appearance this season and second straight on JP Sports. USC is 4-4 on television. The appearance is the second of four scheduled games for USC on JP Sports in SEC action.

USC is 26-46 in JP Sports games. Historically, USC is 255-225 in games on the tube.

USC Head Basketball Coach Dave Odom met with the media on Tuesday afternoon to talk about the LSU game on Wednesday in Baton Rouge. The following are some of his comments:

Coming off the Kentucky game the other night I felt we had a great start. Looking at the tape I thought we attacked them. I thought we went after them as hard as they came after us.

Somewhere in the middle of the first half around the 9 minute mark I think there depth began to take over. We should have stopped play to slow the momentum and try and regroup. We tried to play through it and they ran off a 16-2 run on us and the game began to get out of hand.

That is a tough regroup at halftime. You try to find some small things to hang your hat on as positives in the first half. I feel we played better in the second half but it was a hang around half for Kentucky. They were just playing to get out of the building. I was glad to see that we still played hard despite the score. We have got to play for 40 minutes. We simply have not put together a 40 minute game in a while. I am not sure if we have even played a 40 minute game this year. That has got to be our goal to play a complete game.

LSU is much like us in that both teams are starved for victory right now. They are playing at home so that is certainly is an advantage for them, right now I don’t think it is important where you play as much is how you play. I really am going to push our team on ways to win the basketball game and vision ourselves wining the game.

Some of new guys are playing well. I think Tarence Kinsey had his best game. He looked comfortable and did a good job of driving to the basket. I feel if he continues to play well he will see more minutes. I thought Kerbell Brown played well as well. Although he did not put together a 40-minute game.

LSU has all their starters back and they are a good basketball team. They have talent and Bright is one of the best guards in the league. They have a good starting group and a solid all-around team. We have to go there and establish a pace that is comfortable for us.

Things I am concerned about recently are our transition defense and the fact that we are not securing loose balls. We have got to do a job of playing plays out. Against Kentucky we had 35 deflections but only came up with 8 steals. That shows we are not playing the play out.

Is Tarence ready to Start Again?

He looked like to me that he belonged on the court the other after noon. He continued to play well yesterday in practice. He seems to have matured a since the beginning of the season and that he may be ready to step back into the starting line up.

Who would he replace?

We have two guys out sick and our team has a virus going through it. Tony Kitchings did not practice again yesterday. Jarod Gerald had problems because he is sick and Chuck Eidson is fighting it as well. So I don’t know what is going to end up happening so for me to go and give you a starting line up right know. I can’t because I don’t know.

Do you feel like at the point “what else can go wrong this year”?

Yes. As soon as you come to that determination, you know something will. We all know what can go wrong will go wrong. At this point I am just like bring it all on and let’s get it over this year. I really feel bad for those who are at practice and play well and not have all the pieces there. I have never been through a season with this much going on. I feel though that I have not had it so why should it not happen to me this year but we will get through it and be better for it.