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GAME SCHEDULE „ Q WOMEN’S EQUESTRIAN vs. Fresno State , 1 p.m. Saturday ”a£e 8 MEN’S BASKETBALL at Mississippi St. , 6 p.m. Saturday Friday, January 21, 2005 WOMEN’S BASKETBALL at Arkansas, 3 p.m. Sunday USC to tussle with banged-up Bulldogs ■ Mens basketball to attempt to break .500 in conference play By BRIAN DAVIS THE GAMECOCK With a wounded team and a wounded morale, the No. 17 Mississippi State Bulldogs will play host to the USC men’s basketball team Saturday night in Starkviile. Mississippi State (14-4, 6-0 at home) must rebound after a blowout loss to SEC rival No. 18 Alabama, who worked the Bulldogs handily, 98-49. A notable Bulldog was missing in action. Guard/forward Winsome Frazier, who broke his foot, will now leave off his more than 13 points a game from the team’s scoring repertoire. Coming off a victory over Tennessee, who had just beaten the Bulldogs, USC is looking to defend better Saturday and to shoot the ball well against the clearly depleted Mississippi State defense. “When they light up the score like that, it do kind of feel good,” senior guard Josh Gonner said on how the Alabama loss exposed what a team can do to the Bulldogs. “You know they can score the ball, I know we can score the ball. We just got to put the ball in the hole. We get good shots. We just got to put it in the hole.” In the loss to the Crimson Tide, MSU allowed guard Earnest Shelton to explode for a career-high 34 points, while star swingman Kennedy Winston followed him up with 24 points. Included in Alabama’s impressive showing was a 12-for-25 night from beyond the arc. Displaying the susceptibility of the Bulldogs’ defense, USC is set on finishing well and often Saturday. “I think it’ll help if Carlos and us can make some shots,” sophomore forward Brandon Wallace said. “It’ll get the big guys out of the lane and open the lanes up for guards, too.” In an astounding performance last Saturday, Carolina forward Carlos Powell went 8-for-12 from the field and scored 20 points on Tennessee. The team hopes Powell will keep this up, facing potential All-American forward Lawrence Roberts. Powell seems intent on doing so. “Just keep working hard, man. Just keep taking shots that you can make, basically,” Powell said of playing against Roberts. “And just relax while you’re playing, man. Just shoot the ball, let it g°-” Roberts, well-respected as the best SEC player the last two seasons, is averaging over 17 points and leads the SEC in rebounding at 11.5 per contest. “He’s a good basketball player, you know, one of the best in the SEC, one of the best in the country,” Powell said. “You just got to go in there and match his level of intensity, man, and just play harder than he plays.” With Roberts’ presence, accompanied by 7-footer Marcus Campbell beneath the basket, USC needs to provide lots of pressure to force turnovers and prevent simple shots. Frazier’s absence has proved to be a major damper on State’s offensive production. Aside from the lowest point total of the season Tuesday, the Bulldogs’ shooting was poor, hitting 36 percent from the field, nearly 10 percent less than their season average. From beyond the arc, Frazier led the team with nearly two and a half 3 pointers per game. Without him, the Bulldogs shot a surprising 0-for-l 1 from downtown. USC is 2-2 in the SEC and moving forward. The team needs to fight each game and win whatever road games it can. A win against Mississippi State would be the team’s first on the road in the SEC this season. “Oh yeah, I know it’s going to be a good one,” Gonner said. “They’re going to give us all they got, and we’re going to try to give them all we got. We’re going to bring the pain, we’ve got to, we’ve got to get a road win.” Comments on this story? E-mail ga7necocksports®gami.sc. edit “We’re going to bring the pain, we’ve got to, we’ve got to get a road win.” JOSH GONNER SENIOR SHOOTING GUARD CHARLIE DAVENPORT/THE GAMECOCKJ Senior guard Josh Gonner leaps over Tennessee forward Major Wingate in the Gamecocks' victory over the Volunteers on Saturday. Gonner will try to lead USC over Mississippi State this weekend. V/ CHARLIE DAVENPORT/THE GAMECOCK USC football coach Steve Spurrier addresses the media at halftime of Saturday’s basketball game, a USC victory over Tennessee. Recruiting period hits final stretch By ALEX RILEY STAFF WRITER With the Feb. 2 signing day drawing closer, USC is beginning to bring in its last remaining football recruits for next fall. The men’s basketball game had played host to two major groups of prospective Gamecocks over the previous two weekends. This weekend the Colonial Center will remain empty, allowing players to see the rest of the city. Carolina has already picked up 25 commitments — two quarterbacks, one running back, three wide receivers, one tight end, seven defensive backs, two defensive ends, two defensive tackles, two line backers, a kicker and four players listed as athletes. Head coach Steve Spurrier and company will also look to make one last-ditch effort to change the minds of players who have already made commitments elsewhere. USC has had a verbal commitment from Hickory, N.C., three-star kicker Ryan Succop since November. Succop, whose only visit will be to Columbia, had offers from some of the nation’s biggest powerhouses, including the undefeated Auburn Tigers. He is rated as the fifth-best kicker in the nation by Rivals.com. The 6-foot-3-inch, 210-pound kicker did it all in high school, putting 96 percent of his kickoffs into the end zone for touchbacks. He also went 12 of-14 on field goals, with his career long iming from 53 yards out. While Succop is a lock for Spurrier’s first recruiting class, hometown hero Mike Davis isn’t. Davis, a three-star running back from Richland Northeast, is nothing short of a stud, compiling 4,200 yards and 50 touchdowns in the last two seasons. Even though he now calls Columbia home, Davis might not be a Gamecock after all. He has offers from Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Maryland, Kentucky and North Carolina, and has made visits for almost a month. But home is where the final stop is, as Davis makes his final visit of a whirlwind recruiting campaign to USC this weekend. Another recruit coming to the Palmetto State is Justin Carrington, a two-star running back out of Liberty High School in Virginia. Carrington is already committed to Indiana, but his only visit of the recruiting season will be to Columbia this weekend. However, Carrington said he no longer considers himself an Indiana commitment. Ironically, USC has already persuaded one verbal commitment to switch sides in former North Carolina quarterback commitment Cade Thompson. USC is attempting to do the same with Carrin'gton, who amassed 1,886 yards and 28 touchdowns last fall and is giving a look to USC after Spurrier made it clear that he was wanted in Columbia. The Gamecocks will carry some momentum into this weekend’s visits as they received two verbal commitments ♦ Piease see RECRUITING, page 9 53 Women drop SEC road test ; ■ Carolina falls short of first SEC victory against Crimson Tide By MIQUEL JACOBS STAFF WRITER In phase one of rebuilding the USC women’s basketball team, last season’s lone SEC victory came at home against the Alabama Crimson Tide on Feb. 12. Once again starting the season without a conference victory, the Gamecocks traveled to Tuscaloosa in hopes of securing that first victory on national television against none other than Alabama. The result was a dominating performance by Alabama’s Dee Merriweather as the Gamecocks (6-12, 0-4, SEC) lost a 62-75 decision to continue its string of SEC shortcomings. The loss extended Carolina’s losing streak against SEC competition to 10 games. The Gamecocks also extended their woes on the road, as Carolina has yet to win a game away from the Colonial Center this season. The streak stands at 10 games, beginning after last season’s victory over the College of Charleston on Jan. 28, 2004. Five players led Carolina in double digit scoring in last year’s victory, led by Iva Sliskovic’s double-double. The inside game didn’t show up for Carolina this time around, as its five post players combined for only 17-of-62 points. Sophomores Lauren Simms and Stacy Booker led Carolina as the only two players in double-digits with 21 and 16, respectively. Lea Fabbri also added six assists and four steals, a career high. Alabama had only two players averaging in double figures, but the scorers came out to prevent Carolina from scoring its first conference victory against them again. The Gamecocks The loss extended Carolina’s losing streak against SEC competition to 10 games. contained 15 points per game scoring threat Marverly Nettles to four points but allowed others to fill her roll. Five players posted double-digit numbers, led by Natasha Gamble’s 14. Merriweather had the only double-double on the night, posting 11 points and a game high 17 rebounds. The Tide entered the match-up as one of the better rebounding teams in the league and backed that statistic with an excellent showing against a tall Carolina ♦ PleaSe see WOMEN, page 9 NICK ESARES/THE GAMECOCK O Sophomore forward Melanie Johnson is double-teamed in USC’s ij loss to Florida on Sunday. Johnson and the Gamecocks are 3 winless in the SEC after losing to Alabama on Thursday. _ _3 Brady knows how Big Ben feels j hi wmmmmmmmKm KEITH SRAKOCIC/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger talks with his teammates during practice at the team facility in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. Roethlisberger is undefeated as a starter at QB. By DAVE GOLDBERG AP FOOTBALL WRITER PITTSBURGH — When Tom Brady started the AFC championship game here three years ago, he was a second year quarterback who had barely gotten on the field as a rookie. So he knows what Ben Roethlisberger faces when the Pittsburgh Steelers play the New England Patriots in Sunday’s conference title game. “It was my second year but my first year as a player,” Brady recalled. “My rookie year there’s no way I could have done what he did. I was awful. I couldn’t do anything.” The Patriots are seeking their third NFL title in four years. And they enter the game as the favorite even though the lost to the Steelers 34-20 on Oct. 31 and Pittsburgh is riding a 15-game winning streak. Why are they favored over a team New England coach Bill Belichick and his players repeatedly call “the best team in the NFL?" , Maybe it’s because the guys who make the odds and the public that lays down the money has more confidence in Brady’s two Super Bowl MVP trophies than in Roethlisberger, whose ^ two interceptions in his first postseason game last week against the New York Jets almost led to Pittsburgh’s elimination. However, Big Ben’s season has been the most successful ever for a rookie quarterback. In Brady’s eyes, Roethlisberger is already all grown up. I wish I didn’t lose a game this year, Brady said. “Maybe I should get some pointers from him.” Roethlisberger became a starter in the third game after Tommy Maddox was hurt in a loss in Baltimore _ the ♦ Pleads see AFC CHAMP, page 9