Dec. 16, 2008

Recap | Final Stats | Notes

South Carolina Head Coach Darrin Horn
Opening Statement…
I thought early on in this game we looked like we had been off for about 12 days. In the first half, we were not as sharp defensively as we wanted to be. We did a poor job of taking care of the basketball, which really stood out. In the second half, our energy was much better, our defensive intensity was at a higher level. We got that little run with our press to start the half. I think that got us going. We really played better in the second half. I think in a game like this, you take as many positives as you can, but because of the nature of the game, the biggest one for us when you look at the offensive end is the fact that there were 30 field goals and 20 of them were assisted. That’s a real positive to see that we’re sharing the basketball.

On NC Central’s turnovers…
I think some of it was us being really good defensively. The encouraging thing is we played zone the last 15 minutes of the game, which we have not done a lot of. We had pretty good activity. I think we were pretty active and continued to force some turnovers and some bad shots.

On the play of Dominique Archie…
He looked pretty aggressive in the second half. He took a bunch of 3’s. I think Dominique is doing really well. He is doing all of the things that we are asking him to do. He is not a guy that is going to go out and get you twenty every night. That’s not his game. He is a guy that is capable of that but he’s going to do it in a variety of ways. He is an unbelievably important defensive presence for us. Not only because of what he does when he needs to be doing it, but because of what he covers up for us. We’re really pleased with where Dominique is right now.

South Carolina Player Quotes
Senior Guard Zam Fredrick
Thoughts on the game…
We’re coming off about twelve days of just practicing and not being on the floor. We were anxious to get back out there, play in front of a crowd, and just play a real game. We just wanted to come out and play hard. We wanted to play good defense, take good shots, try to get good shots, and just try to play a good overall game.

Junior Guard Devan Downey
Thoughts on the win tonight…
In a game like this you don’t worry about the opponent, and you just go out and try to get better. I feel like for the most part we did that. Especially in the second half we focused on getting better.

Thoughts on the way the team played defense…
Like I said before, in a game like this you just want to go out and work on things. You want to see what you are doing wrong on defense. We have had a break where we haven’t played in 12 days, and I think that it showed a lot about us to be able to get it going like we did.