Dec. 4, 2004

Recap | Final Stats | Notes

South Carolina vs. Clemson Post-game coaches quotes 12/4/04 Columbia, SC

Dave Odom, South Carolina — ” This was one of the weirdest games I have been involved with in a long time. Early on, we were really out of sync with our offense. We’ve spent so much time on our defense lately. We started out so slowly. I looked up one time and we only had three points and there was about 10 minutes gone in the first half. But, we got back in the game by halftime. I thought at the half we were okay. We were fortunate to get to overtime. We had way too many unforced turnovers. Basketball is a game that really penalizes you if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do. Give Clemson and Coach Purnell full credit. We must get tougher — tougher mentally and tougher physically. Right now, we aren’t tough enough to win a game like that. (on the 12-25 free throw shooting) Putrid. That’s all I can say. If you put blinders on you can shoot better than that. I felt good about how Tre responded in the second half. But, he didn’t get much help.”

Oliver Purnell, Clemson — “I’m very proud of our basketball team. We came into a hostile environment, on the road, in a packed house. The important thing is that they didn’t come in at all intimidated. Now, coming to South Carolina, a huge road test, in-state, they approached the game trying to grab it by the throat.”

“I thought our defense was outstanding early. We had trouble offensively, but South Carolina had a lot to do with that. The way the game unfolded, our team had chances to fold and be satisfied, but we kept chipping away. We had two seniors on the bench fouled out, but we stayed aggressive. We found a way to win.”

On Cheyenne Moore’s game-winning three-pointer: We had no timeouts left. It was an option off our secondary break where we set two double screens. Cheyenne came open and I think he might have hesitated, like he couldn’t believe he was open. He knocked it down. There wasn’t much doubt when it left his hand. You want to get an open shot in that situation. To get that shot, I was very happy to get a good look at the basket.”

On his team’s defensive play: “I thought our defense was pretty good for the most part. There was a six to eight minute stretch in the second half where I thought we slowed up. We stayed with a small lineup for the most part. In fact, we were too small at the end of the first half. We just wanted to stay aggressive. We didn’t trap much in the fist half, but we did in the second and it was effective for us.”