Jan. 7, 2004

Recap?|? Box Score?|? Notes?|? Photo Gallery

– University of South Carolina Head Coach Dave Odom: “We executed well enough to get to the threshold of winning, but we didn’t execute when it was time to win. We had two or three critical defensive breakdowns, for whatever reason. Maybe we got confused, I don’t know. Still, we had a chance to win or tie the game at the end. I have a lot of respect for our team and I certainly have a great deal of respect for Florida’s team. They are well-coached, well-disciplined and they keep their poise. They can beat you with the three-pointer, but they can also beat you with the three foot shot. I thought we belonged here tonight; I thought we could win the game. We shot too many three-pointers. They like to play zone until you can beat them from outside. We should have dribble penetrated more. On this particular night, we were worthy of being on the same court with Florida. This game was decided on its own merit.”

University of Florida Head Coach Billy Donovan: “South Carolina came into tonight’s basketball game with great energy and they were ready to play. The loose balls and everything else that I thought was important to the game, they played a lot better at than we did. At the end of the game we got a couple of plays to go our way to win the game. Everyone talks about who South Carolina plays but to me they are a very good basketball team. We had a difficult time matching up with them. We really had a difficult time dealing with them off of the dribble. They didn’t shoot the ball very well. Looking at their shooting stats, it might look like we played good defense but I will have to watch the film. With them missing a lot of shots, you would think that we had a chance at a lot of fast break points but tonight we only came away with two points on fast breaks. Tonight, David Lee had a great game and he really helped us out and another guy who stepped up was Christian Drejer. Anthony Roberson was non-existence but that was mostly due to early foul trouble. He was in the flow of the game and at the end he hit some big free throws. This game ended almost identically to the one we had here last year.”