The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, November 24, 2003, Page A9, Image 9
| THE GAMECOCK ♦ Monday, November 24,2003 , ^0
I \ /^\ rri rN game schedule
CONTACT US m ^ m ■ I 9 I MEN’S BASKETBALL vs. Southwest Missouri State
~I i at Guardians Classic Semifinals in Kansas City, Mo., 9
Story ideas? Questions? Comments? I 1 f I I I L 1 _ p.m. Monday
E-mail us at gamecocksports@hotmail.com ■ B B rV J VOLLEYBALL at UNC, 12 p.m. Saturday
V
Strong defense pushes
USC past Midshipmen
BY SHAWN ROURK
THE GAMECOCK
| its
• Cr If defense wins championships,
then USC is getting plenty of prac
tice before its SEC conference
schedule begins in January, and
nothing could make head coach
Dave Odom happier after knock
ing off Navy 73-40 Friday night.
“I am very, very pleased with
our defense,” Odom said after the
game. “I
thought defen
sively we were
exactly where
we needed to be
almost on every
place. Early on
I think they got
the ball inside
on us too
much.”
. USC’s de
| *nse was domi
nating all night.
Statistically, it
was one of the
team s best defensive perior
mances.
“They’re playing well together.
Defense, like offense, is confi
dence. You have the confidence to
get tight on a guy and know that
he’s not going to drive by you, but
if he does, your teammates are go
ing to cover for you,” Odom said.
They combined for 20 steals and
nine blocks on the night, a season
high through their first three
games. The Gamecocks also
caused Navy to turn the ball over
30 times, which amounted to 40
points off turnovers.
“I think three of their first five
. -baskets were inside baskets. We
H__
cut that out, made them go to the
outside, dogged their dribblers,
dogged their shooters, cut out
their offensive rebounding,” ;
Odom said. “And I think offen
sively, it just took us a little while
to get on track.”
The defensive onslaught even
sparked much of USC’s points on
the night. The team’s offense was
jump started with the defensive ef
fort of Jarod Gerald, who played
11 minutes in the
game and got four
steals and three
big assists in the
short amount of
time.
“I think the
thing that got us
going tonight was
not Tarence
Kinsey, it was
Jarod Gerald.
Jarod hadn’t real
ly played in a
game or so,”
Odom said. “I
thought we were in a bit ot an of
fensive lull and decided to go
ahead and put him in. He got us
going on the defensive end.
Deflections, got a couple of re
bounds, made a couple of really
nice assists, got the ball to the
right people. Jarod can do that. He
can get a team moving whenever
you’re stagnant.”
The Gamecocks’ offense was
feast or famine all night. There
were points in the game where
shooters could not get the ball to
go in, then they would link to
gether six quick points off
turnovers and suddenly Odom’s
shooters were 7-for-10 and on a 15
0 run in the second half.
“Offensively, we’re a team that
plays in spurts,” Odom said. “We
go along in a lull for a while where
we can’t score points, and then we
score them in flurries. I don’t
know if I like that or not, but 1
think the crowd does.”
Michael Boyton led all scorers
with 15 points, followed by
Tarence Kinsey who had 14. In all,
five Gamecocks were in double fig
ures. The team combined to shoot
45 percent from the field. Even
though it was the best effort all
season, Boynton said they’re still
not where the team wants to be at
the moment.
“Guys are just trying to press
too much,” Boynton said. “Early
on, guys are trying to feel where
they fit into the offense. We have
a lot of new guys that don’t know
where they can implement their
individual talents into the team of
fense. So it’ll take time, and in a
couple of weeks you’ll start seeing
a lot more improvement.”
Odom said that his team’s de
fense will get its first tough test on
the road in the semifinals of the
Guardian’s Classic. USC is sched
uled to play Southwest Missouri
State in Kansas City on Monday.
“That’s a very tough assign
ment,” Odom said. “We’re going
to the state of Missouri and play
ing a Missouri team. The water
gets deeper, the sharks get more
ferocious, and it’s time for us to
move out. Let’s move up. Let’s see
what we’ve got and test our metal
against a really good team.”
Comments on this story?E-mail
gamecocksports@hotmail.com
“Offensively, we’re a
team that plays in
spurts. We go along in a
lull for a while where we
can’t score points, and
then we score them in
flurries. I don’t know if I
like that or not, but I
think the crowd does.”
DAVE ODOM
USC MEN’S HEAD COACH
wmmMmmmwmmmmmKm. .. —***anmi
PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
USC's Michael Boynton, who led the Gamecocks with 15 points, drives by a Navy defender.
w PHOTO BY MARK SCHILLING/THE GAMECOCK
USC’s Nicole Miller and Katelyn Panzau go for a block during Alabama’s 3-0 defeat of Carolina.
Volleyball loses in
first round of SEC
tourney to Alabama
A USC
Pgj (12-17, 6-10 SEC) 0
B Alabama 3
18-13,11-5 SEC)
BY WES WOLFE
THE HAMECOCK
The No. 6 seed USC volleyball
team (12-17,6-10 SEC) was bounced
from the first round of the SEC
Volleyball tournament Friday by
No. 3 seed Alabama, 3-0. The
Crimson Tide (18-13,11-5) used
strong defense and offensive con
sistency to beat the Gamecocks
and advance to the tournament
semifinals.
“You could see the players get
discouraged,” USC head coach
Kim Hudson Christopher said. “A
couple of bad plays, and it is easy
for a team to make a run on us. We
average 14 unforced errors a game.
I think a lot of it has to do with
youth. It will be a very difficult
spring. We have to get mentally
tough, and have to get the players
to be able to perform under
stress.”
Perception during the match
was that Carolina was making
more errors than the Crimson
Tide. In reality, Alabama finished
the match with only five fewer to
tal errors than the Gamecocks.
The difference in the match was
made on earning points. Overall,
Bama had 16 more kills and four
more service aces than USC.
Alabama outside hitter Erin
Heffner led all players with 17 kills
and her teammate, outside hitter
Jennifer Bibber, was second with
15 kills. Outside hitter Shonda
Cole led Carolina with eight kills,
but her eight errors canceled out
those. Similarly, Gamecock out
side hitter Sarah Morgan was sec
ond on the team with six kills, but
she also had six errors.
Alabama made a run in the first
game to take a 1-0 lead in the
match. After USC had established
a 20-14 lead, Bama began making
♦ TOURNAMENT, SEE PAGE All
Women’s basketball opens season with loss
BY PETE IACOBELLI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CLEMSON — Julie Aderhold
saw something good as soon as
Clemson teammate Julie Talley
put up the long 3-pointer that
turned the tide for the Tigers.
“I knew it was going in when
it left her hand,” Aderhold said.
Talley’s shot with 1:52 to go in
overtime recaptured the lead —
and the momentum — for the
^ Lady Tigers, who went on to a
* *03-99 victory over rival South
Carolina on Friday night.
Everything that had gone
Clemson’s way for the game’s first
32 minutes went wrong the last
seven.
The Lady Tigers let a 79-64 lead
slip away behind the furious charge
of Gamecock seniors Cristina
Ciocan and Kelly Morrone.
Ciocan finished with a triple
double — 22 points, 13 assists and
10 rebounds. And Morrone stuck
what looked like the game’s most
dramatic shot, a deep thfee-point
bucket with 1.7 seconds left to
force the extra session.
“It would have been easy for
them to hang their heads,”
Clemson coach Jim Davis said.
“Especially after they lost the
lead.”
Instead, the Lady Tigers (1-0)
forced South Carolina (0-1) into
quick shots and took advantage
— mostly — at the foul line down
the stretch.
Lakeia Stokes had seven of
her career-high 32 points in
overtime. Her two foul shots
with 30.6 seconds put Clemson
ahead 102-96.
Ciocan gave the Gamecocks
one last hope with her third 3
pointer, but Aderhold ended the
drama with a foul shot with 3.2
seconds to go.
It was as sweet a win as either
of these rivals can have.
Two years ago after South
Carolina had lost in the final
eight of the NCAA basketball
tournament, coach Susan
Walvius congratulated her team.
But she reminded them that
they weren’t state champs.
Clemson was one of seven loss
es the Gamecocks had that
season.
Last year, the Gamecocks
broke Clemson’s seven-game
win streak at newly opened
Colonial Center in front of 17,712
fans — the largest crowd to
watch basketball in the Palmetto
State.
“I only wish there were 11,000
out there to watch,” Davis said.
Littlejohn Coliseum was less than
half full, possibly because many
fans already had left for the
school’s season-ending football
game on Saturday night.
Stokes said the team had point
ed to this contest ever since last
year’s loss. “This gives us a good
boost for the rest of the year,” she
said.
Clemson hopes to rebound
from its 14-15 season of a year, the
first in 16 years with Davis as
coach.
South Carolina coach Susan
Walvius said her team picked up
its defense to get back in the
game. “But we lost the game in
the overtime period doing the
same things we did in the first
half,” she said. “We didn’t guard
Talley and she hit the deep three.
We gave them second shot oppor
tunities. That’s what the game
comes down to.”
After Talley’s game-changing
basket, the Gamecocks missed
their next eight shots and
Clemson upped the lead.
Stokes went 14 of 20 from the
foul line. She also had 14 re
bounds and five assists.
Clemson had five players in
double figure scoring. Talley had
15 points, Kanetra Queen had 13
and Maggie Slosser had 12.
Morrone finished with five 3
pointers and 21 points for South
Carolina. Gritsaeva had 20 points
and Sarah Burgess 17.
Both Clemson’s Davis and
South Carolina’s Walvius say
they don’t plan to open the season
against each other next yeay.
Being thankfulfor
sports is on my list
BEN SINCLAIR
GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM
Thanksgiving gives me a
great chance to reflect.
Being assigned to write the last
column before Thanksgiving, I
did something many people do
this time of year. I started to re
flect oh everything that I should
be thankful for. The more I
thought about it, the more I real
ized many Gamecocks and sports
enthusiasts likely have a very
similar list. I hope everyone read
ing this column has just as many
reasons to be thankful. In case
you need help, I thought of just a
few things you might be thankful
for as well.
First, I am thankful for The
Gamecock. I am just as thankful
for the opportunity to write this
column and for the people who
read it.
Despite the many complaints
about USC football, I am thankful
that Lou Holtz is our football
coach and not Brad Scott or
Sparky Woods.
I have to be thankful for all the
vehicles that safely transported
me many miles to pull for the
Gamecocks. It took tremendous
faith to believe that old Cavalier
would make a round trip from
Columbia to Omaha and back
without problems. So far, I have
seen almost every SEC town with
out needing a tow truck.
♦ THANKSGIVING, SEE PAGE All