March 22, 2003

South Carolina Head Coach Susan Walvius
Opening Statement
“We are excited to be here, and we are excited to have another year in the NCAA Tournament as we are building the program at South Carolina. Our objective every year is to compete for a National Championship. We have a tough road ahead of us; we understand that. Right now, we’ve got a one game season against Chattanooga. We think they are not a good basketball team, but a great basketball team. They are extremely disciplined; they attack the rim very well; they’re good inside, and they shoot the three extremely well. So, as I said, we know we’ve got our work cut out for us, and we’re going to work as hard as we can to play as well as we can.”

What are your feelings towards the pre-determined sites?
“It’s different. It is certainly much more comfortable playing on your homecourt; you’ve got your fans there, and your players sleep in their own beds. I think it’s a tremendous advantage for a team to have a homecourt opportunity. I was more in favor of how things were last year, which we would still play on the road this year.”

How difficult is it to defend a team that has a lot of different players who score like Chattanooga does?
“I think Chattanooga is a very tough team to defend. Not only because of their versatility offensively, but also because they execute extremely well. They make very good decisions; they’re a transition team; they push the ball; they’ll shoot the three in transition. His players seem to understand their roles. They work to get their inside; they take advantage of their strengths, and they work to run and inside-out attack. Even though one of every four shots they take is a three-point shot, they make great decisions. I’ve been really impressed watching this team.”

Talk about the difference between playing here as opposed to at home.
“Well, I think what our job as a staff is to make our team as comfortable as possible. We’ve had a little bit of success on the road this year, being able to go out and play the way we did in Georgia even though we lost in double overtime there. Winning our last away game the way we did in Mississippi, I think we’ve played fairly well on the road.”

Senior Forward Jocelyn Penn
Talk about the idea of concentrating on Chattanooga and not looking ahead to a possible match up with Penn State?
“It’s not difficult; we know what we have to do to win this game. We’re not focusing ahead; we’re not looking ahead. Obviously Chattanooga is a great team or they wouldn’t be here.”