Feb. 19, 2006

Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery

USC Coach Susan Walvius

“We got done what we needed to get done today. We had a very specific gameplan, and I thought our team for the most part did what they had to do. We did a decent job guarding the shooters. We knew that we had to guard (Armintie) Price, and we did a decent job taking the ball out of her hands. Our defense was pretty solid, we rebounded better in the second half. Offensively, we played with a sense of urgency and that got us a sensible lead, and then we got conservative. But when the game was on the line, our team stepped up and won the game, and I’m proud of them.”

“(Mississippi) is a difficult team to guard because they’re very good with penetration and have spot-up shooters. Price is arguably the fastest guard in the league. We knew we needed to take away her right arm because she’s not as quick on the left. We knew we had to contain her.”

“We had to get the rebounding job done today. We lost to Mississippi in the SEC tournament last year on an offensive rebound. We had to control the boards.”

“Fortunately for us, we’re shooting 50 percent. Am I happy with 25 turnovers when they’re not steals? Absolutely not. I thought we turned over a little bit in a stretch, but in the most important part of the game, we had control of the ball.”

“When we moved the ball, we didn’t turn it over. When we held the ball, we turned it over. When we have that sense of urgency, we’re a much better team and play well.”

“We’re where we need to be right now. We need to continue to take care of business. I told our team `Longwood is the most important game right now.’ I know it’s cliché, but we need to take it one game at a time.”

Redshirt-Sophomore Forward Lakesha Tolliver

“We knew it was going to be a rebounding battle because Price is an excellent rebounder. We had to make sure we boxed out and got the rebounds. We knew she wasn’t a three-point shooter, but we knew we had to stop her from penetrating and getting deep in the lane.”

“My teammates helped me to put me in the position to score. Iva (Sliskovic) had a nice amount of assists, some of them to me, and my teammates just put me in position to score.”

Sophomore Forward Melanie Johnson

“This team has grown from last year. We’ve lost some games on errors we could have corrected, and this year we’ve corrected them.”

“If we take it one game at a time and get things done that need to be done, we can make noise in the SEC tournament and then the NCAA tournament.”

Mississippi Coach Carol Ross

“You have to give South Carolina all the credit in the world. SEC games are won in the paint.”

“With any team, you want to make the game into a half-court game on defense. We did a nice job, but they still got a lot of fast break points. We’re the shortest team in the league and have to do our job protecting the paint. They had too many shots in the paint, and the one’s on the outside were uncontested. As good as their defense was, I thought ours was anemic as far as getting them off the boards.”

“If (South Carolina) gets to the .500 mark in our league, I would think that it’s a slap to the face to the league to not get into the tournament.”