Jan. 3, 2006

Recap | Box Score | Notes

USC Head Coach Dave Odom Quotes

“I can’t imagine a team having a more rigorous non-conference schedule than SC State. They have not played a home game yet, and they still have two more away games before their first home game.”

“We played a tired basketball team tonight.”

“I thought Keving Palacios played well tonight. I was really pleased with him.”

“We start league play on Sunday, as all conference teams do this weekend. I do not know a lot about Tennessee except that they have a new coach, Bruce Pearl, and they return all but two players. It is going to be a tough and hard fought game.”

“Our smaller lineup was effective tonight. The experiment with the bigger lineup was not really in effect tonight.”

“I do not expect Tarence Kinsey to score twenty-four a game; he can help us also with his defense and his leadership as well.”

South Carolina State Coach Ben Betts Quotes

“I have to give a lot of credit to South Carolina and Coach Odom. They did a good job on defense and forcing deep shots. My hat’s off to their team.”

“We weren’t ready to play and I take full responsibility for that.”

“We played two games in the Furman Tournament a couple days ago. I don’t think fatigue was the problem. To be honest, we weren’t ready to play.”

“I felt our guys would be up for the challenge. We can get fans here (in Columbia). This is an away game, but we can look for support for these types of games.”