Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

8 Game.Schedule ► BASEBALL vs. Charleston Southern, 3 p.m. SOFTBALL vs. Oklahoma at Tallahassee, Fla., noon ; _+ _ . EQUESTRIAN vs. Georgia, 2 p.m. ^UOriiaCI ' MEN’S AND WOMEN’S TRACK in Armory Invitational • Story ideas? Questions? Comments? at New York City , E-mail us at gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu MEN’S BASKETBALL vs. Vanderbilt, 7:30 p.m. Saturday * » Men’s. Basketball ' . USC can regroup against Vandy BY WES WOLFE THE GAMECOCK The USC men’s basketball team (19-5,6-4 SEC) will try to get back on track when the team takes on Vanderbilt on Saturday. Carolina suffered a tough loss on Wednesday against No. 6 Mississippi State (20-1,9-1), let ting go of a 12-point in the second half en route to a 4-point loss in overtime. “Maybe we came unglued at the end, I don’t know,” USC head coach Dave Odom said. “They turned the heat up and we didn’t respond. I told the team after the game. The next step for this pro gram to take is the hardest. I will be sorely disappointed if this af fects us Saturday night.” The Gamecocks will try and regroup at home against Vanderbilt, who started off the season strong but hasn’t been able to keep up the performance level in conference play. The Commodores (15-5.4-5) went un defeated until they started the SEC season, and have had trou ble on the road. Vandy, who lost to USC at home earlier this sea son, is 0-4 in SEC road trips, los ing at Florida, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky. “We have struggled against South Carolina lately,” Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings said. “They’ve had our number. They have a tough envi ronment to play in over there. We will have to play well. They had a tough loss versus Mississippi State last night. The fireworks from the last time we played are over. Our team realizes there is no place for that sort of thing in college basketball. We will just have to go in there and play hard.” Stallings was referring to the game played at Vanderbilt on Jan. 28, when forward Renaldo Balkman and Vanderbilt guard Corey Smith got into a fistfight. Both players were suspended for the following game for both teams. Carolina won the earlier game, 57-55 on a last-second tip in by forward Kerbrell Brown off a missed shot by guard Josh Gonner. The game marked Vandy’s first home loss in 11 games, and continued USC’s dominance of the Commodores. The Gamecocks have won 13 of the past 16 games between the two teams, and Vandy’s loss against Carolina was the only home loss for the Commodores this season. Wednesday, Vanderbilt won in a blowout against Georgia, 61-39. The win marked Stallings’s 200th career win. “Vanderbilt is coming of a re ally big win last night at home,” Odom said on Thursday. “It was a game they needed to win badly and they took care of their busi ness.” Tipoff for the USC-Vanderbilt game will be at 7:30 p.m. at the Colonial Center. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu Carolina needs to prove potential ednesday has been called “hump day” because people are looking to get past the middle of the week. How ironic is it that the USC men’s basketball team is also trying to get over the hump? That’s exactly what it couldn’t do against Mississippi State on Wednesday. It’s also what Carolina couldn’t'get done against Kentucky at Rupp Arena ' last Saturday. This raises one question: Can Carolina win a big game? Some argue that the Gamecocks have won sev eral big games, such as N.C. State, Auburn, Alabama and Vanderbilt. BRAD SENKIW But this team has l°st Fourth-year three crucial season ■nt changing matches against journalism Florida, Kentucky and student Georgia by a total of eight points. It’s not the end of the world to lose so close to these schools; especially after the years of horror these teams have brought to Columbia. The Gamecocks, as good as this season has been, have lacked the national attention-grabbing win that puts this team on the NCAA map. Odom told his team after the game that he was proud of the run so far, but “the next step is the hardest.” “If you back away from that, which we will not do, you make everything else you’ve done a waste,” Odom said. What made the 79-75 overtime loss so dif ficult to figure out was the lack of poise and decision making down the stretch. As the Bulldogs turned up the defensive pressure, the Gamecocks had trouble dealing with it, especially after building a 12-point lead in the second half. Odom said the key to the game was the Bulldogs use of the 1-3-1 trap ping defense. “We handled it very, very poorly, and I was absolutely surprised,” Odom said. “It was something we talked to our team about.” Odom also defended his decision not to foul with 13 seconds left when Timmy Bowers nailed a three-pointer that sent the game into overtime. The coach said he didn’t even think the Bulldogs would make the shot, leading him to stress the impor tance of not fouling on the shot attempt. The Gamecocks abandoned their offensive sets late in the game to go to the post to Rolando Howell, hoping to pick up the final foul on MSU’s Lawrence Roberts. This proved to be ineffective after Howell had trouble catching the ball in the right posi tions and scoring points in the final minutes of overtime. What the fans and the team must under stand is Mississippi State isn’t ranked sixth nationally for nothing. This team had more talent than Carolina and also more determi nation, increasing its record to 10-0 on the road. It seems that of all the lessons USC has learned this season, this might be the most important. For the Gamecocks to finally take the step Odom was so passionate about, the team will have to play with the same great ness that the Bulldogs exhibited on “hump day.” PHOTO BY DAVID STAGG/THE GAMECOCK USC basketball coach Dave Odom participates in his call-in show, which was held at the Pulliam Ford dealership on Thursday. ~_»___——_——_-_:_' -_ PHOTO BY DAVID STAGG/THE GAMECOCK Center Rolondo Howell goes up for a shot in USC’s close loss to Mississippi State. Howell scored a career-high 24 points. Odom urges positive support from students BY JONATHAN HILLYARD THE GAMECOCK USC basketball coach Dave Odom talked with students on his weekly radio call-in show Thursday night about the atmo sphere in the Colonial Center and what the student body can do to help basketball program to con tinue growing. Students from different organi zations attended the show live at Pulliam Ford on Two Notch Road and talked with Odom about where USC’s basketball program wants to go from here. “I think we’ve got to be very careful in supporting the basket ball team that we don’t let the emo tion drive us to do things we wouldn’t typically do if we had our heads,” Odom said in an interview with The Gamecock after the show. In Wednesday’s game against Mississippi State there were in- “ stances in which members of the student body used curse words against the opponent or threw things on the floor and Odom said he didn’t want that to become the trademark of the Colonial Center. “We have to think really hard and ask ourselves ‘how do we want to be known,”’ Odom said. “In many of the venues you go to around the country the student body spends more time jeering the opponents than cheering for their own team. What I want to encour age our students to do is to cheer for our own team and not jeer the opponents.” ♦ODOM, SEE PAGE 9 / USC garners first SEC victory BY JIM ROCHE ‘THE GAMECOCK The USC women’s basketball team won its first SEC game of the year Thursday as they rolled over the Alabama Crimson Tide (11-12, 3-7 SEC) 77-51, shooting the lights off in the Colonial Center. Forward Iva Sliskovic led the way for USC with 18 points and guard Sara Burgess added 13 points off the bench as the Gamecocks snapped their eight game losing streak in SEC play. The Gamecocks (10-12, 1-8) started out the game with a three point shot by forward Olga Gritsaeva to jump on top. • USC shut down Alabama’s leading scorer, Monique Bivins, in the first half holding her to just •one point off a foul shot as she went 0-6 from the field. Guard Kelly Morrone had two three-point shots in a row to put the Gamecocks up by 14 late in the first half. Sliskovic had 14 points as USC led Alabama 38-25 at halftime. Carolina dominated the sec ond half as Burgess stole the ball and went for a lay-up to put the Gamecocks up by 22 midway through the half. USC was just too tough outside as Morifone and Burgess lit up the score board and Sliskovic was unstop pable inside. USC led by as many as 29 points at one point, going up 73-44 with four minutes left in the game. USC played a complete game both offensively and defensively. USC gave up just 51 points; this was the fewest points a Gamecock team has given up all year. USC also shut down Alabama's perimeter game as the Tide shot a pitiful 6-of-27 for 22 percent from 3-point range. Offensively, USC had five play ers in double figures as they shot 46 percent for the game. “I want our team to be hungry and to go out and win a lot of SEC games,” USC head coach Susan Walvius said. USC w’ll look to pick up an other SEC victory against the No. 18 Auburn Tigers. Auburn is un defeated at home this year at 12-0 overall. The Tigers are very sound on defense with one of the best centers in the conference in their sophomore Marita Payne. Payne was SEC co-Player of the Week last week as she broke a school single game record with 10 blocks against Kentucky. Payne is just four blocks away from breaking the Auburn single season record for most blocks in a season. Auburn beat Ole Miss Thursday night 82-70 to improve to 19-5 overall and 7-3 in SEC play. USC will need another strong scoring effort from Morrone and Sliskovic to beat the nationally ranked Tigers and hand them their first loss of the season at home. The Gamecocks play the 18-5 Auburn Tigers Sunday at 2 p.m. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu PHOTO BY TRISHA SHADWELL/THE GAMECOCK Guard Kelly Morrone accepts the in-bound pass In USC’s blowout victory against Alabama on Thursday. Morrone went 3-of-7 from the field for 11 points and five rebounds.