Feb. 27, 2008

Recap | Final Stats | Notes

South Carolina Head Coach Dave Odom
“In the end their size got to us. There was a big disparity on the boards, 44-28. They had 13 offensive rebounds. It got to where they handled us inside. Garrett Temple when the clock was running down, he was a problem for us (with his) shooting.”

“When you look at the whole game, our team played well in the first half. We had a 5-0 lead it seemed like forever. I thought we could build on that lead but we couldn’t do it for whatever reason.”

“We actually tried to foul on the last play of the first half. We had a foul to give. Devan thought he fouled him but (it wasn’t called) and he hit the three-pointer.”

“In the second half, Zam Fredrick had really good plays there. I thought we corrected the zone. That was much more sound in the second half. Still when it got down to it, they got inside. Mike Holmes played well and even Sam Muldrow (played well) even though he hasn’t been playing much lately.”

“Unfortunately for us they didn’t miss any free throws. They were 14-for-14. We were 7-for-7 so there weren’t any missed in the game. You look after that, in the first half just about every other category other than rebounds, everything was dead even. You say how in the world did you stay in the game like that, well they turned the ball over 14 times, we turned the ball over four. Our ability to not turnover the ball is keeping us in the game because of our rebounding disparity.”

On last shot attempts of the game “I thought they were all good shots. We had two against the zone. All of Zam’s shot I would want him to take for sure. Dwayne’s I thought was a little rushed and Dominique’s I thought was good for sure.”

Zam Fredrick
“The way I played today had nothing to do with being on the bench. I knew I was in a slump. People go through slumps sometimes. I knew I had to go out there and do what I needed to do.”

“We lose the same way every time. We need to find something different so we can seal the deal.”

“I keep approaching the game the same. If I had all the answers, we wouldn’t be losing like this.”

“We don’t point fingers. We are not that kind of team.”

Dominique Archie
“This is really getting old. We’ve got to find it somehow, find a way to make plays, find a way to play defense. This year wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“We’ve proven we can play with the elite teams of the SEC. Now we’ve just got to prove we can win against them.”

“We’re playing for the university. When Coach Odom leaves, USC is still going to be here. We’ve just got to make a name for ourselves.”

Devan Downey

(On losing close games) “It’s getting very old, but I keep trying to stay positive and keep talking to finish this season out. You see what kind of man you are when things start to go bad so we need to stay positive and stay together.”

“We came into this season with a lot of hope, but it didn’t pan out like we wanted. But we thought we’d be in the talk or the top of the SEC, but we have to stay positive.”

(on worst scoring performance) “I did my best, but it only shows that I am human. Everybody has games like this.”

LSU Head Coach Butch Pierre
“It’s big for us to have two wins in a row. Winning two out of three SEC road games is also big. I thought we came out sluggish. We were lucky to gain a lead at the half. In the second half, we got stops. There was one stretch where we scored eight out of our nine possessions. That helped us win.”

“Garrett Temple was big. He did a good job with Devan Downey. He’s a good defender. He can guard guys from 5’10” to 6’6″. He has good reach and played 40 minutes for us. He’s a coach-savvy player. He does a good job studying film.”

“We tried to control the tempo to keep them from running the floor and getting open 3’s. We moved into a half-court offense to slow things down and make plays.”

“We got risky by switching to a zone with two minutes left. That was the difference in the game.”