Jan. 11, 2014

Recap | Final Stats

South Carolina Head Coach Frank Martin
Opening Statement
First and foremost I want to thank our fans. It is the first time since I’ve been here where I’ve felt that we’ve actually had a home crowd and I am extremely disappointed that they came here to support us and we let a great opportunity go to send them home feeling good about our team. Close losses are just bad, that doesn’t help you in any shape or form. To start the game with a bad turnover and that just continued. We had two bad spells in the game, we survived the one in the first half but we couldn’t survive the one in the second half.

On Sindarius Thornwell…
We’ve been on him about being more aggressive and assertive. He has got to be more on attack mode offensively and we’ve been harping him on that and today he was. He got shots and got to the line, which gave us a little life. Our guards missed some shots, Ty (Johnson) and Brent (Williams), they missed some shots and that’s going to happen. Our inside play is just atrocious right now. We got out-toughed at the rim by freshmen and that’s unacceptable. We missed some shots, but we cannot get out-toughed and we got out-toughed today.

Freshman Guard Sindarius Thornwell
Taking over in the 2nd half because of others’ foul trouble or the coaches’ decision…
I think it was a little bit of both. I was just getting open shots. I was just playing in our offense and it was coming to me easy. We were just running our offense and it just so happened that I was open.

Junior Guard Tyrone Johnson
Bigger take-a-way: the team’s fight to get back into the game or the fact that they lost…
The bottom line is that it’s just a loss. When we have a crowd like we did today and the crowd is into it – they just beat us. They out-rebounded us on the offensive glass, defensive rebounds. We just have to find a way to close games like this. With a great crowd behind us, we’ve got to find a way to win. There’s no excuse. We’ve got to come in and be tougher. That team just out-toughed us today on the glass. We kind of took away what their two guards do, which is score the ball well, but, inside we didn’t do too well as a team rebounding.

LSU Head Coach Johnny Jones
Opening Statement
I was really pleased with our guys’ effort today. I thought it was a great team effort. We really needed to play well from tip to finish coming into a hostile environment like this – they won the last five of their last seven games and they’ve been playing well. I thought we got off to a great start battling through a tough game. But we battled through the first half and then getting into the locker room with a two-point lead. And then even there at the end, continuing to do more of the same. We got a lead with the attitude mentality of the team. We knew they weren’t going to quit and were going to continue to fight to get back into it. I’m really proud of the two freshmen. I thought both of them played extremely well. Jordan [Mickey] playing as he’s played really all season and being steady. And I thought Jarell Martin did an excellent job today coming off the bench – I thought he played really relaxed, knocked down shots, free throws, and defended extremely well to give us an opportunity to get out of here with a win today.

On spreading the floor and getting good angles to the basket…
Yes, I thought we did a great job of spreading the floor and getting angles to the basket and making plays. Unfortunately, we didn’t knock the free throws down and we didn’t knock some of the shots down – only shooting thirty-something percent from the field. I thought we had better looks and great opportunities. Shots didn’t go, but I thought we were able to make it up on the other end of the floor with hustle-defense and getting stops when we needed them.

LSU Freshman Forward Jordan Mickey
On starting slow, but picking it up in the 2nd half…
I just had to slow down. I was playing a little too fast. I had a few turnovers that were kind of careless. I just had to slow down and play my game.

LSU Freshman Forward Jarell Martin
On coming off the bench…
Coach just said that he wanted to try something new and I was waiting. I just want whatever is best for the team. And coming off the bench I felt really relaxed. As the game was going on, I got really comfortable with everything and started knocking down shots and getting to the free throw line.