Nov. 9, 2013

Recap | USATSI Gallery

South Carolina Head Coach Frank Martin

Opening Statement…
I am extremely happy with how we played. With so many young kids and even Tyrone (Johnson), who I will speak about in a minute here. It’s not like he has been in our system a long time so all of this is new to him too, but I am extremely happy with our guys. Our rebounding, our attention to detail on defense, but we did get a little lackadaisical there in the second half we were playing the score and I am talking about our guards. They started playing the score so defensively we didn’t guard the ball with the same sense of urgency that we did in the first 30 minutes of the game. When you have so many young kids that is kind of understandable, it is not acceptable but it is understandable, and we will work on that. I am proud of our guys, we have been hard on them in practice to try to get them ready to wear that uniform and represent our great University and I was proud of the way that we played today.

On holding Longwood to 23% field goal percentage…
I’m happy with our team’s defense, we gave up some cheap baskets coming down the stretch there, which I don’t really want to think about right now, but we have been really hard on our guys to understand defensive concepts and the sense of urgency you have to play with and that’s why I’m so proud right now. We didn’t out-score them we defended them and there is a difference there with the attention to detail. Coach Clark, who I am ecstatic to have on our sideline, he is one of the great guys in our business you would think that he was 27 years old with the energy that he brings out there. He is happy to do this again and he prepared our team for us today. It is hard to prepare for a first year coach with a bunch of new players and you have a bunch of freshman on our side the attention to detail by our players is pretty good. They where good and if that’s a (Colonial Life Arena) record then they deserve to put their name on it because they played well.

On Tyrone Johnson…
This is what I’ll say about that and the first is about our compliance office. Chris Rogers and his people only get spoken about when something negative happens but the work that they do everyday to help us coaches and athletes is off the charts. Our compliance office is incredible with how helpful they are and how incredible that they are. They have been working on this for a while and when I got that call last night I was extremely excited. The other thing that I am going to say is hats off to the NCAA. They take a lot of hits and I think that they made a decision that would help a young man that didn’t do anything wrong. When I called Ty I had a sense of humor and I like reeling people in so I started talking to him about his role and practicing with the backups and how he has done a really good job of keeping everyone in tune. I said Ty you can’t lose your focus and you have to do your job and make those young guys do better. We were going back and forth and I said `because tomorrow when you are out there,’ he said `what do you mean?’ and I told him that he was in and he could play and he just started screaming on the phone. So you know the kind of kid he is he told me that he needed all of the phone numbers for the people in compliance so he could call and thank them. I was ecstatic for him and he hasn’t played in two years. And once he settled down and started to feel the game better I think you saw how he can really help us.

South Carolina Player Quotes
Tyrone Johnson – Junior – Guard
On the slow start to the game…
I don’t think they threw anything at us that we didn’t expect. Guys were just pumped up about the game and I think our energy level got to us early. We just try to come in and do everything that coach asks us to do and we kept the lead and then came out in the second half even hungrier. We did everything that coach asked us to do in the first half, the difference was that we made shots in the second half and played better defense.

On being cleared to play by the NCAA and being a major contributor in the game…
As I have said in previous interviews I prepare myself as if my number could be called any day. Coaches and my teammates have been positive with me while I was sitting out, but I took practice everyday like it was a game. I try to push the tempo and lead these guys on and off of the court. I just tried to be the most aggressive person I could be. Today my number was called and I was really happy about that. Sitting out a year I think that there are some mistakes I need to fix but I am happy with the first game for myself and for my teammates and we will move on to the next.

Mindaugas Kacinas – Sophomore – Forward
On being aggressive on the boards and having 14 rebounds…
Every single day in practice our coaches tell us to rebound the ball really hard. Every single practice is like a game for us so we are just crashing the boards really hard. Coach (Martin) told us before the game that they were not a really physical team and that their bigs are not that physical, and because of that we were able to crash the boards and get a lot of rebounds.

Michael Carrera – Sophomore – Forward
On the freshman…
They are growing up really fast and are doing a great job and understand everything that coach (Martin) is saying. They are having a little bit of trouble because they are really young but I think they are doing a great job. It is what we really need from them and they are really growing up fast.

Longwood Head Coach Jayson Gee Quotes
Overall thoughts on the game…
I thought our kids fought and battled, but we just couldn’t score. I think we did a decent job defensively in the first half, holding them to 39% shooting. We knew coming in that we were going to have a tough night on the boards. I think our match-up zone bothered them a little bit, but in the end, we just couldn’t score.

On the guard play of South Carolina…
I thought they were guard by committee and they had multiple options to go to, which made it hard for us to match-up with them. I think Coach Martin has some depth, athleticism, and some poise at the guard position. I was impressed with the freshmen guards and then the guard that came off the bench (Brenton Williams) that made the 3s; I thought he was a major difference in the game. He was just as effective as he was in their previous game versus USC-Aiken. Coach Martin has a stable of good guards and he should be happy with them. They’re young, but give them some time and I think in the end, this is going to be a formidable program.