Feb. 23, 2006

Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery

USC Coach Susan Walvius

“You have to feel good as a coach when you can throw the ball around the gym as much as we did today and still win by 30 points against an SEC team. I thought our defense was real solid. We got our rebounding job done today, and we had strong individual performances. Stacy Booker did well after the first half and Melanie Johnson was shooting well. We played a little tight today. Our team understood the importance of this basketball game, but it was the tightest I’ve seen this team play in a long time. Hopefully that’s out of our system. When you can win a game by 30 in this league when you don’t play well and know you don’t play well, you’ve got to feel good.”

“We have a lot of respect for this Mississippi State team. They’re scrappy and they almost beat us at their place. They are aggressive, really get at you, and played their last four basketball games really tight. We knew we would have to play well to win, and we did a good job defensively.”

“I like our team a lot. We’re very hard to guard because we are so balanced. Throughout the course of the game we can wear teams down because of our depth. I like our chances. This is the deepest team I’ve had at South Carolina. Our Elite Eight team had similar depth.”

Regarding Mississippi State Guard Robin Porter:

“We wanted to take away her left hand. Michelle Marciniak did the scouting report for Mississippi State. I don’t think we did a great job guarding personnel in our first game.”

“I have to give our players a lot of credit. It was difficult for this game because we only had one day to prepare. Our players are a little fatigued. We haven’t had a day off in a while. We have tomorrow off and then we have one day to prepare for Vanderbilt.”

“Our focus all year has been to attack inside-out. We were a team last year, we jacked a lot of perimeter shots. A lot of young teams don’t understand shot selection. Our basketball team does. If you look at our shooting percentage compared to where we were last year, we are making better decisions.”

Regarding Demetress Adams:

“I wouldn’t say I had expectations too high for her. I knew she would come and make an immediate impact. I think that’s part of the reasons why she came to South Carolina. When she injured her hand, that bothered her a bit. You can still see that she sometimes tries to rebound with one hand. I might be answering this question different if she didn’t injure her hand. She is going to be a fantastic player at South Carolina.”

Junior Forward Melanie Johnson

“One of our focuses was to get out and let our defense create offense. It sparked a good lead and created tempo. Tempo was one of the keys that coach talked about in pre-game.”

“The team was a little uptight. We played Mississippi State to a close game at Mississippi State and didn’t know what to expect tonight. We knew we had to get our jobs done rebounding. Every game in the SEC is going to be a pressure packed game.”

Freshman Center Demetress Adams

“The team has been humble and the coaches are as well. We know we’ve been on a long stretch, and we just want to stay focused.”

Mississippi State Coach Sharon Fanning

“You have to give credit to South Carolina in terms of intensity and focus. They have a lot of kids that can play. They use a lot of combinations, and that made a big difference for them size-wise. They certainly are a balanced team. They’ve won seven of their last eight games and are probably a hot team.”

“In the second half with 10 minutes to go, it’s a 13-point game. Then a couple of `and one’s’ and a couple of big shots later, we seemed to lose our focus.”

“You can’t shoot the percentage we shot and allow a team to shoot 56 percent. We scored more points here than we did at our place. We have to keep our heads up. Right now we have an awfully young team that’s learning. We’re playing a lot of different combinations but we’re not playing consistent basketball.”

“We struggled offensively. We have to see the game better, read and react better. That’s what the game is all about. You have to establish yourself and you have to score at the rim.”