Dec. 7, 2007
South Carolina Head Coach Susan Walvius
“Jackson State is a team that was an NCAA Tournament team last year. They won their conference and had some key players returning. We knew they would give us a challenge.”
“We are young in the backcourt right now. Brionna Dickerson will be back soon. Everyone is anxious and excited and misses her. We miss her too. It has been positive because other people have had the opportunity to step up and show they can do it. Jasmine Payne has stepped up and shown some promise. Jordan Jones has been extremely consistent for us in handling the basketball and making decisions.”
On next game against University of Connecticut:
“UConn may be the best basketball team at this point in time in the season that I have ever seen, to be quite honest. They are working hard. Jordan Jones’ high school teammate is on that team. UConn has blown out every game they have played. They work hard every possession. It takes that consistent work ethic to be a championship quality team. That is the message we are hearing everyday. We need that [work ethic] from our entire team. If we get that from our entire team, we will have the opportunity to compete. We play these games to give us an opportunity. You can’t win the game unless you play the game. It will be a great experience, and that game will get us ready for SEC play.”
“We now have two days off. The players have been around each other for three straight weeks. We are going into exams, so the players have two days off to prepare for exams. The thing we have to learn is how hard we’re going to have to play consistently throughout the game [against UConn]. That is the difference between good teams and great teams. The one message that we’re going to work on communicating this week is that this is where we want to go and this is how hard we have to play. It is work ethic.”
Senior Guard Ebony Jones
On next game against University of Connecticut:
“There is effort that has to go into it, a collective effort. It can’t be one or two people here and there. In practice, especially the younger girls have been working hard together. We’ve been trying to go hard. I think we’re going to get there with our collective effort, and we’ll get the job done.”
