Nov. 12, 2010

Recap | Final Stats

South Carolina Head Coach Darrin Horn

Opening Statement…
I think the story of this game is what we hope is going to be the story of our team and our entire program moving forward as we continue to build- it was the strength of our team tonight. We had over 10 guys in double figures (minutes). We had nobody over 30 minutes. We had six guys in double figures on points. We had 23 assists, which is terrific. We also took care of the ball pretty good, too. We saw some different guys do things that we didn’t see early. We had guys like Bruce (Ellington) who had 23 points the first (exhibition) game and tonight didn’t score well. But I thought he controlled the game and was unbelievable at getting shots for others. He was terrific defensively. Those are all positive things that we can take and build on. Obviously we have a lot of work to do. Our conversion defense was bad. We gave them too many open looks, especially for a team that shot the three as well as they do. I think those are the kinds of things that we can fix moving forward. It was a team effort tonight. We saw a lot of guys contributing.

On Malik Cooke…
I told him that his greatest strength in coaching him last year is that he brought energy. He brought a certain toughness. He’s a guy who can do a little bit of everything. We all saw that he was pressing a little bit. We really encouraged him the past couple of days, to drive to the basket, get to the glass to get a rebound, and he was able to do that. I think that when players do that, I feel like it’s only a matter of time before everything starts falling into place.

On how much practice Ramon Galloway had participated in due to his injury prior to the game…
One and a half, sort of. That’s why it was a game time decision. We needed to see how the foot was going to react. We felt like if it was good, we could use him. He also found a way to get double figures. That’s what he does.