The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, January 21, 2005, Page 8, Image 8
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.”
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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