Dec. 20, 2008

Recap | Final Stats

South Carolina Head Coach Darrin Horn
Opening Statement…
I think, as coaches, we knew coming into this game that this would not be an easy game. This is a team that plays very physical. They are very disciplined. They are really well-coached with what they want to do. I’m a little disappointed all-in-all. I thought that they played harder than we did over the course of 40 minutes. I thought that we were good in spots and that our effort defensively in the second half was what it needed to be and it helped us get a lead that we were able to keep. All-in-all, I thought that they played harder than we did and that’s something that we can control in terms of our effort level. We need to evaluate and make sure that we understand that that’s something we need to take care of. I credit the Citadel. I thought they played a great game. They played hard. One thing that we were able to do is make them work for what they wanted to do. We did great at the foul line. We had good, balanced scoring. There are positives that we can take away from this game.

On the starting lineup…
We say that you have to reward guys that practice well. We talk about it, preach it, and we just keep putting the same guys out there. Austin (Steed) had practiced better and Evka (Baniulus) has been better because of how he’s practiced so those are the two guys we went with.

On The Citadel’s early lead…
I don’t want to take anything away from them. You have to credit them. They came ready to play and made good shots and were ready to attack us. Defensively, we talked doing what we did from the 10 minute mark on in the first half and in parts of the second half, we didn’t want them to come down and swing the basketball and execute because they’re really good at it. In the first five minutes, that’s what they did. I’m just disappointed that our focus wasn’t what it needed to be and we just need to make sure we’re ready to play.

South Carolina Player Quotes
Junior Forward Dominique Archie
On the use of a different starting lineup in the game…
I don’t think the lineup had anything to do with it because in practice we switch around. We practice with different players at different spots.

Junior Guard Devan Downey
On the sluggish start to the game…
I really think I did a poor job as a leader tonight. We came out real flat tonight and were not ready to play. The team really feeds off of me, and I have got to do a better job of coming out and being ready to play.

On the teams’ second-half performance…
We really let our offense feed off our defense in the second half. When we do what we are supposed to do on defense then it allows our offense to score very easily. We did a much better job of that in the second half.

Junior Guard Brandis Raley-Ross
On his role tonight…
We did not get off to a real good start tonight, and coach told me to get in the game and try to pick the team up. That is all that I tried to do tonight, and it seemed to help. I have been practicing really hard, and I knew if I came out and was aggressive then I could do real well tonight.