Jan. 12, 2008

Recap | Final Stats | Notes | AP Action Photos

Columbia, S.C. –

Head Coach Dave Odom

“I thought during halftime, if we could correct a couple things offensively and defensively, that we could make a run at them. I never dreamt that we would come out of the locker room so flat.”

“Tennessee played extremely well for 40 minutes. They have a very good basketball team. They’re good on defense. They’re good on offense.”

USC Player Quotes vs. Tennessee

Dominique Archie

On the play of the team: “We just got down early, and couldn’t really get going offensively. We just couldn’t set our own pace tonight. They are a good team, and we are going to play nothing but good teams the rest of the way out. We are going to have to get used to playing these better teams. All the players are going to have to start playing harder.”

“We all need to be more aggressive and we didn’t show that tonight. We have to start playing 5-on-5 and not 1-on-5.”

On starting the second half: “As a player we want to start each half strong and get on a run, and get going. Tonight, we didn’t do that offensively or defensively.”

Devan Downey

“It’s definitely frustrating after a game like this, but we just have to stay positive. We have to work harder.”

“In warm-up, I didn’t think we were coming out as hard as we could so the fact that we came out flat was not a surprise.”

On the team’s loss of confidence: “We are 8 and 8 now. We just have to scratch for a win. We can’t worry about confidence we just have to go in and play hard.”

“It doesn’t matter that I had 24 points, our team lost.”

“I don’t know what we need, but Coach Odom is a good coach so I know he will come up with something.”

Head Coach Bruce Pearl

“We started the 2nd half off big. We really came to play. I think the loss last year may have had something to do with it.”

“We go as JuJuan Smith goes. He went up against some great guards and was really impressive.”

“We had a pretty good defensive effort tonight. Our offensive efficiency lapsed at times. We were able to jump on them at the beginning of both halves.”