Dec. 5, 2008

Recap | Final Stats | Notes

South Carolina Head Coach Darrin Horn
Opening statement…
This was a game that didn’t seem to have a lot of flow to it for various reasons. It was the first game that I didn’t feel like we came out and were really ready to play on both ends of the floor. Especially when we did not attack their zone well early, we let that lead to poor defense on our end in the first half. You have to give credit to that line up we had in, I think it was Mitchell (Carter), Austin (Steed), maybe Branden (Conrad) and Evka (Baniulis), where we went zone and they got us a couple buckets and got a few stops for us, which helped us get a ten-point lead at half time. The difference in the game in the second half was we had great defensive effort and intensity.

I think that is going to be a growing process for our team, to learn that we’re going to win with defensive effort and with not letting what happens on one end affect the other. We were not very good at it in the first half, but adjusted better to it in the second half. We were glad to get the win.

On play in the second half…
We did a better job of moving the basketball and driving the zone. We got out and transitioned and ran a little bit and got in the paint some. We did the thing you have to do against a team that is playing a lot of zone as opposed to standing around and flicking the ball around the perimeter and jacking up a 3 or taking a bad shot. I think we did do a better job of that ¬- to get to the line 34 times on a night when you’re not shooting well is good.

On the high number of free throws taken in the game…
There was a point where I think they (Furman) had one field goal and most of their points at one point in the second half were at the foul line. Sometimes games are going to go like that. It was just kind of the flow of the game. Again, we did not handle it well in the first half, but in the second half did a better job of getting to the foul line through attacking better and still maintaining good defensive effort on the other end. I hope what it shows is that what is important is that you play together and you defend and you rebound. That if you do those things with five guys working together, a lot of good things can happen.

South Carolina Junior Guard Devan Downey
On the team’s second-half play…
The second half we focused in on defense, and got the job done. It isn’t going to be pretty every time, we came together as a team and pulled it together on the defensive end.

Thoughts going into the exam break…
We can’t lose focus – we have to bring it every practice. Academics is first, but once we get that out of the way we have to bring it and use this time to get better.

Junior Forward Evaldas Baniulis
On his play…
We hit a couple shots, we got going, the crowd got going, we got some energy. In the beginning I probably wasn’t playing with the energy that I am supposed to play, but eventually I picked it up.