Nov. 25, 2003

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Carolina Plays Richmond in Guardians Classic Championship Tuesday Night; USC host Campbell Saturday

Looking to settle a score for knocking the Gamecocks out of the 1998 NCAA Tournament, Carolina will play Richmond tonight at 9 pm EST for the rights to call themselves CHAMPIONS – GUARDIANS CLASSIC CHAMPIONS. USC is hunting for its 15th tournament title and its first preseason tournament.

In last year’s Guardians Classic finals, Creighton defeated Notre Dame 80-75 to win the tournament. In the inaugural 2001 Classic, Missouri defeated Iowa 78-77.

Finally

The majority of teams in The Guardians Classic have little or no history with USC, but there is one that does. The Richmond Spiders hold an 8-7 series record over USC. The last time the two met might have been the most damaging, though. Gamecock fans certainly haven’t forgotten the 62-61 loss to the Spiders in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in 1998. The Gamecocks, seated No. 3 in the East Regional after its second straight 20-win season, saw both BJ McKie’s jumper and a successive LeRon Williams tap fall short as thenranked No. 14 Carolina fell to Richmond in the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. It was the secondstraight year an Eddie Fogler-coached team fell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as the year before, in 1997, USC fell 78-65 as the second seed to No. 15 seed Coppin State (East Region, Pittsburgh, Pa.).

Tournament Past

In the Gamecocks last pre-season tournament appearance, they finished fourth in the Maui Invitational in 2001. In November tournaments, since 1980, USC is 9-8. In preseason tournaments (Maui Invitational, Puerto Rico Shootout and Guardians Classic), USC is 7-5. All told the Gamecocks have won 14 tournaments in the past, dating back to 1951. Those titles include the following: 1959 Richmond Invitational (86-85 win over Lafayette), the 1960 Gulf South Classic (85-79 win over Ole Miss), 1968 Quaker Classic (62-59 win over LaSalle), 1969 Sugar Bowl Classic (84-83 OF win over Notre Dame), 1970 Holiday Festival (86-84 win over Western Kentucky), 1971 Cable Car Classic (67-59 win over California), 1974 Carolina Classic (77- 64 win over LSU), 1975 Carolina Classic (70-61 win over Oklahoma State), 1980 Palmetto Classic (62-53 win over Furman), 1983 Florida Citrus Bowl Classic (64-51 win over Stetson), 1987 City of Miami Classic (76-63 win over Miami, Fla.), 1989 Sun Carnival Classic (62-60 win over Kansas State), 1990 Diet Pepsi Tournament of Champions (74-70 OF win over Houston) and the 1991 Texas Star Classic (71-69 2OF win over San Diego State).

A few Gamecock notes

– Carolina currently has a four game winning streak. The longest winning streak at SC under Coach Odom is five. The five game winning streak started on December 8, 2001 and ended on January 5, 2002 in Gainesville against the Gators.

Under Odom, the Gamecocks have posted four straight wins four times.

With the win over SMS, it marks the second straight year that the men’s basketball team starts out with a 4-0 record. Since joining the SEC, USC has started 4-0 only twice. The other mark was in 1997-98 when they posted a 23-8 mark overall and an 11-5 record in the SEC. (none of the teams since joining the SEC has won the first five games of the season)

The Spiders also holds a 8-7 advantage in the series. Carolina is 4-1 in Columbia, but Richmond holds a 6-2 mark in Richmond while the two teams have split two games at neutral sites.

On Saturday, the Gamecocks play Campbell. USC leads the overall series 4-1. Campbell’s only win came in the 1993-94 series when they posted a 73-72 win in OT. Carolina smallest win against Campbell was 17 points in 1987-88. The largest win was 34 in the 94-95 season. The average margin of win in the four games is 22.75 points.

November Reign: Odom is 10-2 at South Carolina in the month of November. The two losses came against Duke and UCLA in the 2001 Maui Invitational.

USC is making their first appearance in the city of Kansas City on Monday. USC’s only other visit to the state of Missouri was when they played in St. Louis.

Kinsey had 43 points all of last year and through four games this season, Kinsey has (64).

The 33 point victory over Navy was USC’s biggest since defeating Ball State on March 21, 2002 in the final game at the Carolina Coliseum. It is Carolina’s fifth largest win under Coach Odom. ( 45 vs. Charleston Southern, 36 vs. Mercer, 35 vs. Ball State, 34 vs. Tennessee, and 33 vs. Navy)