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10 GAME SCHEDULE - SOFTBALL vs. UCLA at Desert Classic Tournament in ^ Las Vegas, noon Friday (j Q [ ^ r L S BASEBALL vs. James Madison at Berkeley Co-op Shootout in Charleston, 1:30 p.m. Friday Story ideas? Questions? Comments? MEN’S AND WOMEN’S TRACK at Meet of Championships E-mail us at gamecocksports@hotmail.com in New York, Friday and Saturday USC declaws the Tigers Clemson eg (12-8) USC 76 (9-11) BY MATT ROTHENBERG THE GAMECOCK Despite playing only two nights before Valentine’s Day, there was no love lost Wednesday between the USC men’s basket ball team and their Clemson counterparts. The Gamecocks led from beginning to end, as they held off the Tigers 76-59 at the Carolina Center. Just like the Vanderbilt game the previous Saturday, Carolina had all parts of its machine work ing in the victory, the Gamecocks’ second straight over all and third straight against Clemson. A crowd of 17,072 showed up at the Carolina Center and pro-, vided an enthusiastic, conta gious atmosphere. The crowd was the largest to see a men’s basketball game in the state of South Carolina, surpassing the turnout for the USC game against Florida a couple of weeks ago. “Our game plan was simple; simple to formulate, difficult to execute, centered around de fense,” USC head coach Dave Odom said. “We felt, in order to win this basketball game, we would need to play great defense, and we asked our players to set a tone early. “I think for the most part, I felt we played an excellent de fensive game: smart and very ef fective. That’s the type of thing that could give you an opportu nity to build a better basketball team.” USC (9-11) ran out to a 14-2 lead early in the first half, thanks to its smothering defense that made Clemson miss its first five shots. The- Gamecocks also began to make their inside presence known, taking down rebounds — both offensive and defensive — with an efficiency little seen over the past month. Each time the Tigers (12-8) made a push, however, the Gamecocks^ managed to push back. Clemson’s Tomas Nagys and Olu Babalola kept the Tigers close to USC, but offensive pro duction from a variety of Carolina players helped widen the lead. Senior guard Chuck Eidson had 10 of his team-leading 20 points in the first half, on perfect 3-for-3 shooting, including a pair of 3-pointers. The Gamecocks shot a decent 44 percent from the field in the first half, but their defense was even more impres sive. Carolina limited the Tigers to just 24 points on 28.6-percent shooting in the opening half and forced 10 Tiger turnovers, as well. Even while bringing down a to tal of 17 rebounds, Odom was not very pleased with the fact that Clemson was beating the Gamecocks on the offensive glass with nine rebounds, compared to USC’s five, but he liked the de fensive play nonetheless. “This was the second game in a row where the board play was a positive factor for us. Clearly, 41-29 is something that we’re not used to, but something that we’ve worked awfully hard on,” he said. “I liked the fact that it was not a one-man re bound show. We did a great job of team re bounding.” “We couldn’t stop Ed Scott, but what we did was we made Clemson take more time to score, than perhaps they were comfortable doing,” Odom said. In the second half, Carolina slowly came out of the break, allowing the Tigers to score on their first two pos sessions. At that point, Odom called a timeout to get his team back on the same page, consider ing his players to be “more than some what comatose.” The two teams re mained fairly even through the begin ning of the second half, but the Tigers were able twice to cut Carolina’s lead down to a single point. After the sec ond time the Tigers came within one, the Gamecocks became largely unstoppable. Carlos Powell came out after a media tfmeout and hit a wide open 3-pointer from the top of the key, beginning a 15-1 run that opened up a lead Clemson could not recover from. Senior forward Chris Warren helped ♦ BASKETBALL, SEE PAGE 11 PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK USC’s Tony Kitchings, left, stretches for a layup during the Gamecocks’ win against Clemson. Kitchings had 14 points and seven rebounds. Carolina shows improvement in win BY MATT ROTHENBERG THE GAMECOCK Wednesday’s 76-59 victory against the Clemson Tigers could be the start of something special for the USC men’s bas ketball team. Having put togeth er their first winning streak in over a month, Carolina is look ing forward to extending that run against Arkansas tomorrow afternoon. USC head coach Dave Odom thinks the Gamecocks have turned the corner on a month long losing streak his team en dured. He thinks that, faced with the challenge of a one-point lead against Clemson, the response he received is indicative of a pos sible change in attitude. “The lead gradually narrowed to the point where we only had a one-point lead, and it was at that point that I think we per haps grew up a bit,” Odom said. “One of the problems with this team is that we haven’t met chal lenges in a positive fashion often enough. And I think at that mo ment we did.” Citing contributions from Chris Warren, Rolando Howell, Carlos Powell and Tony Kitchings, Odom thought their plays “gave us the breathing room we needed to win the bas ketball game.” Odom was clearly impressed with the smart defense his team played, noting that he can use it as a foundation for improvement in the future. “We challenged our team to day with shut em down. Shut em down, shut em down consis tently, and I think we did,” he said. He also thought the defense is “the type of thing that can re ally give you an opportunity to build a better basketball team.” Offensively, though, the Gamecocks struggled a bit after halftime, and Odom wanted to breathe some life into them. The attitude shown by Carolina was clearly different before and after Odom and the coaching staff spoke to the team. “At the beginning of the sec ond half, we were somewhat co matose, and I called a timeout. That’s the time where you really challenge your team and they ei ther stand up or they go south, and our team stood up there.” Kitchings, USC’s starting cen ter, said the win against Clemson could jump-start the team into a run similar to the one they made in the SEC Tournament and NIT last year. “We made this run last year around this time. We beat Georgia and then won a couple in a row, so we are just going to try to capitalize on these two wins and make it a third win, and then go from there,” Kitchings said. Teammate Chuck Eidson said, “It was big, and we still have a long ways to go. It’s big for us to come in here and play good basketball. It’s nice, we knew we were a good basketball team, it’s just nice to get the W’s to go along with it. I think this is going to be big for us when Arkansas comes in there, and we’ll see from there.” But Odom chose to mention that this is just a boost to his team’s psyche. “We feel like we beat a good team tonight, and that should give us confidence,” he said. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com USC to aim high at Berkeley Shootout BY SHAWN ROURK THE GAMECOCK USC baseball head coach Ray Tanner and his team have start ed the season with a somewhat disappointing three-game se ries against Charleston Southern, which included bad outings by their top two start ing pitchers. But, on the bright side, they are 2-1 to start the season. Tanner knows, however, that his team’s performance against the Bucs to open the season was not what he wanted. “Quite frankly, I expected us to be a little better in all facets of our game,” Tanner said. “Do I think we were bad? No. But, we had two starting pitchers that did not do a good job.” Going into this weekend’s Berkeley Co-op Shootout in Charleston, Tanner is trying to turn around the team’s first two pitching performances, in order to get on track for the rest of the season. Pitching was the breadwinner for the Gamecocks last season and having two of their first three starting pitchers come off the mound in the first few in nings is not exactly their formu la for success. Senior Steven Bondurant and sophomore Matt Campbell were lit up in the first three innings of their re spective games. Junior David Marchbanks, however, went seven and a third innings to record his first win, while only acquiring a 2.45 ERA. Campbell has an ERA of 8.10 after just his first game, and Bondurant’s is at 15.75 — alarming numbers for the Gamecocks. “Am I disappointed? Yes, but not worried,” Tanner said. “That was one outing. You can have a bad day. Hopefully that’s all that was.” The round-robin tourna ment, held at Joe Riley Park will feature a number of top SEC teams including Tennessee and Vanderbilt. “Every team that is in the tournament this weekend are potential NCAA teams. It realh takes on the flavor of an NCAJ regional,” Tanner said. “You car go back at the end of the yeaj and look at this tournament, anc probably four or five of the team: are going to be NCAA teams ir the postseason. From that stand point, it’s a very challenging very difficult tournament to b< in.” • FILE PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK David Marchbanks, above, and the Gamecock baseball team will play James Madison today In the Berkeley Co-op Shootouti Two positives going into the tournament for USC are their hitting and fielding. In the first three games of the season, the Gamecocks have 32 hits and < have been getting those hits from their key players. Senior Brian Buscher and ju nior Nick Gardiner are both bat ting .500 oh the season and have combined to produce 13 of the team’s total runs. Buscher also has five RBIs and Gardiner has batted in three. Bryan Triplett and Justin Harris both have four RBIs al ready on the season. The team also committed only three errors on the season. USC is missing one of its key ♦ BASEBALL, SEE PAGE 11 Georgia defeats USC in overtime use 91 (17-6,5-5 SEC) Georgia 97 (17-5,8-1) BY PAUL NEWBERRY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ATHENS, GA.— No. 14 Georgia overcame a 19-point deficit in regulation, shook off South Carolina’s 3-pointer at the buzzer and went on to beat the 15th-ranked Gamecocks 97-91 in double overtime Thursday night. Mary Beth Lycett and Kara Braxton scored 19 points apiece to lead the Lady Bulldogs (17-5,8-1 SEC), who completed a season sweep of the isth-ranked Gamecocks (17-6,5-5). South Carolina’s Petra Ujhelyi hit a 3-pointer as the horn sound ed to send the game to overtime tied at 72. The officials went to in stant replay twice at the end: first to put four-tenths of a second back on the clock for an inbounds pass, then to determine whether Ujhelyi got the shot off in time. The Gamecocks tied it up again, 82-82, on Cristina Ciocan’s runner in the lane with 2.7 sec onds left in the first overtime. Lycett threw away the ensuing inbounds pass, giving South Carolina a chance to win, but Ciocan put up an airball from outside the arc to force another overtime. This time, Georgia went ahead for good when Sherrill Baker’s jumper made it 87-85 with 2:29 re maining. Lycett hit her sixth 3 pointer to give the Lady Bulldogs a five-point lead, and Christi Thomas got loose on the inside for a basket that sealed the vic tory with 46 seconds to go. Six players were in double fig ures for the Lady Bulldogs. Thomas had 18 points, along with 15 rebounds. Ciocan led South Carolina with 21 points, while Ujhelyi added 18 and Jocelyn Penn 16. Ciocan and Penn both fouled out, leaving the Gamecocks with no hope of forcing a third overtime. Baseball stadium looks too tempting SHAWN ROURK GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM University should not bear cost of new field. The talk around the diamond this week was the news that USC and the Capital City Bombers are drawing up plans to build a new stadium for both baseball teams. Although people on both sides are saying that everything is still in the preliminary stages of develop ment, everyone involved is stay ing very positive that the deal will go through. After seeing how great a suc cess 'the new Carolina Center has been for USC and everyone in volved, one would think that the idea of a new baseball stadium would be great for USC and Columbia. Well, yes and no. . There are a number of pros and cons in this issue. The pros are that USC would be receiving its second new sporting facility for one of its teams. The new seats would add a great deal of extra room, allowing for more people to attend games. There is talk about t expanded concessions and bath room areas, as well. There is even talk about the possibility of luxury boxes in the » new stadium, which could lead to more revenue for the university. I know every time I go to a football game or basketball game, they are always sold out. There is also a major plus when it comes to recruiting. Head base ball coach Ray Tanner mentioned this week that USC’s current res idence, Sarge Frye Field, doesn’t ex actly measure up to other stadiums yi| in the SEC. This can hurt the uni versity when re cruits come in and look at the sta dium. Granted, I think USC’s sta dium is a great place and is well located on campus. When com pared to other stadiums in the SEC, however, some recruits may be tempted to go other places. There is only one con that needs to be addressed in this issue. It deals with how to finance an al most $15 million baseball stadium. Last time I checked, no party in volved had $15 million lying around to build a stadium. However, USC Director of Athletics Mike McGee said earlier in the week that he thinks some of the money will come from the city, some of it from the • Bombers organiza tion and a portion from the universi- McGee ty. I like that idea. I think that every one should have to pay for the building if everyone is going to profit from it. The major problem I have, how ever, is that USC is in a major bud get crisis at this time. This week, the state Budget and Control Board ordered another round of cuts from all state agencies. USC then had to get rid of an additional $6.4 million to cover the cut. I have heard reports that tuition may have to be raised next semester to the tone of a 17-percent increase. * Most students are feeling the heat from tuition as it is now. The university does not have the mon ey to go into a deal to make a new baseball stadium if they have to charge students more for tuition just to operate their day-to-day fa cilities. If the athletics department can come up with another way to fi nance the stadium from a fundraiser like a bake sale, figu ratively speaking, then I’m all for upgrading our baseball facilities. ♦ROURK, SEE PAGE 11