South Carolina at Vanderbilt
February 8, 2003
Memorial Gymnasium
Nashville, Tenn.

VU Head Coach Kevin Stallings

“That was pretty sickening. I wish I had an explanation, but I don’t.”

“I felt South Carolina would have a break out game against someone. We gave them every chance tonight. They were shooting something like 25 percent (from the field) coming into the game but you had the feeling they would shoot well against someone. It’s becoming a typical thing that it comes against us.”

“I think our freshmen have hit the wall. Our margin for error isn’t big to begin with and when we’re not on top of our game mentally or physically we’re not going to win many nights.”

“College basketball should be fun. It’s a game played with energy. A game played with emotion. But some teams, when they get to a point like this in a season, fold and some teams that reach this point move upward. I think our team is choosing the former.”

VU sophomore forward Brian Thornton

“I tried to come into the game with energy. Coach stressed before the game tonight that we need to come out ready to play. I wanted to play well early and jump out to a quick start.”

“They hit a lot of open shots. Any time you allow a team in the SEC open shots, they will make them.”

“We’ve been having good practices for the last three weeks and for the most part our play has mirrored that.”

“Matt (Freije) and Russell (Lakey) are trying to lead right now. It’s hard to be a leader sometimes. We just need to do a better job of following them.”

South Carolina Head Coach Dave Odom

“It’s been a long month and an even longer two-and-a-half weeks. Our lone home game was against arguably the best team in the league. I can’t think of a better way to end it – with a win against a good team. Vanderbilt has had a lot of success in this building. They beat Georgia and Alabama here. This is a good win for us. We got some good layups off the press, we didn’t give up many easy baskets, and we did a good job rebounding.”

“I thought (South Carolina guard) Chris Warren bothered Matt Freije. Freije is a great player. Chris did a good job defending him. Freije did make a couple of threes toward the end to put him in double figures.”