Dec. 20, 2006

Recap | Final Stats | Notes

South Carolina vs. Princeton quotes 12-20-06

South Carolina head coach Dave Odom
“[Princeton] had my attention; they had our teams’ attention. For the most part we played well. We started the game OK. I told our team to back off a little bit early so that we didn’t give up backdoor lay-ups and baskets inside of 6 [feet]. I wanted them to do that early because I wanted them to get a feel for the speed of their cuts.”

“You can’t create the speed of the cuts of a team like Princeton [in practice]. So what you’ve got to do is sort of on-the job training in the first ten minutes, so you can get a sense of what they’re doing. But we had them well scouted; by our account we only gave up two backdoor lay-ups, maybe one. That’s phenomenal defense.”

“When you play Princeton, you have to pick your poison. They’re great inside of six feet, and they’re great outside [of the three point line]. Being able to guard both is very difficult. And believe it or not, I’d rather give up a three instead of a two.”

“The first five minutes of the second half we traded baskets, and then we went on a pretty good stretch of about five minutes of our own where Tre’ [Kelley] came alive and we upped the lead to about 18. Our offense was efficient there. Our defense was efficient there. It looked like things were going to break for us. Then we went to sleep offensively and defensively for about seven or eight minutes and they went on a run and the 18 point lead quickly got inside of ten.”

Princeton head coach Joe Scott
“I thought we played well. We played the game the way we wanted it to be played. I thought we got them to do some things that we wanted them to do, but they started with a 13 point edge. They knew it was a close game the last two and half minutes, which put some in it.”

On Tre Kelley:
“I didn’t mind him shooting so much. I think it will help in the future. It helped that he was the only guy trying to do anything and we found a way to stop him. He is one of the better guards in the SEC, which is a good learning experience for out freshman guard.”

USC Player Quotes

Senior Guard Tre Kelley
“I didn’t really have it on my mind that they couldn’t stop me. I just for some reason kept ending up with the ball. Brandon (Wallace) set good picks and I could get to the back and finish layups.”

Senior Guard Bryce Sheldon

“I hope I can come in and play well. I think I played pretty well tonight – hitting shots. I give credit to Tre (Kelley) for finding me. I feel that if I can come in and hit a few shots then I did good.”

Senior Forward Brandon Wallace

“We were working on good penetration and kicking it (out) to the shooters. Tre (Kelley) was able to get inside, pump fake and get it off the glass. After we saw that penetration was working we just kept going to it.”