Feb. 15, 2014

Recap | Final Stats | Photo Gallery 1 | Photo Gallery 2

South Carolina Head Coach Frank Martin
Opening Statement
I’m really proud of our guys. We were on fumes. Every timeout coming down the stretch, there was not a lot of strategy; it was about challenging guys to not giving into fatigue or a difficult moment. They responded like champs. [Trevor] Releford is really good. He’s not a First-Team All SEC – by mistake – he’s a senior. He picked Duane [Notice] apart. But it’s not just Duane. Our bigs on the balls screen didn’t’ do a very good job in the second half. But Michael [Carrera] took a huge charge coming down the stretch there – a huge charge… that bought us a possession.

On the program winning its first back-to-back SEC games in a row since 2011…
I can’t remember the last time I spoke to our team about winning a game. I’m not big into speaking about winning a game or let’s go win this game – I’m not big on that. But I hadn’t spoken to our team about winning a game in a while and after the last game, what I told our guys was they haven’t won two consecutive league games around here in a while. Let’s go do something else that’s a first in a while. And I’m proud of them. I’m proud of the fact that – I’m telling you we’re on fumes – we were really good in practice the other day from an attention standpoint. I thought we really tried to do the right things today. We just didn’t have that bounce in our step. But we fought and we fought. And what makes me proudest is that we’ve been in this moment a lot this year and in earlier games and in SEC play where we’ve had leads and we’ve given up the lead, we haven’t folded but we haven’t made the play that would help us stop the bleeding and win the game. Well, today we were in control the whole game and then all of a sudden we got down four and our guys buckled in and made every play coming down the stretch. And it’s fun to see that from a bunch of young kids.

Mindaugas Kacinas
On his play down the stretch…
It was amazing. I couldn’t believe it. At the end of the game I made a huge mistake as [Trevor] Releford drove, I wasn’t there and he made an and-one. But I recovered with a block and with a tip-in. I don’t know, I just feel great.

Sindarius Thornwell
On his willing the team to win and getting used to that role….
I’ve been doing it since high school so I’m kind of used to it. It’s just different cause college is harder. But I couldn’t have done it without my teammates. We all came to play today. Like the last few games we blow leads, today we blew a lead but we didn’t give up. We continued to execute and play defense and that’s what helped us.

Alabama Head Coach Anthony Grant
On Releford’s last attempt from 3….
We thought we had a good look on that last 3-pointer. Obviously it didn’t work out in our favor. Of all things to happen the ball getting stuck like that, we wanted at least the chance for an offensive rebound. The story of the game is South Carolina played a strong 40 minutes tonight and put themselves in a good position, it was tough for us, but they deserve the win.

On Trevor Releford …
Trevor is a great competitor and he did a great job in the first half. He shot 25 percent from the field and 0-for-4 from the 3. South Carolina had a lot to do with that.

Overall thoughts on team performance…
I’m proud of the guys for the effort we made in the second half. It’s always going to be a 40-minute game and we have to play 40 minutes of basketball. That’s what South Carolina did tonight. Our guys fought and we gave ourselves a chance, but it just didn’t come out in our favor.