Another Disturbing Performance
posted by Scott Hood on Monday, January 14, 2008
Unfortunately, you couldn’t tell by the way USC performed, especially in the opening 10 minutes of each half.
The 80-56 loss to the nationally ranked Vols zapped the energy from most of the USC fans at the Colonial Center. It was yet another dreadful performance in a season that’s steadily spiraling downward.
Based on what I saw Saturday night, it appears my prediction of a 6-10 finish in the SEC was a bit optimistic. Yes, there’s still 14 conference games left to play and plenty of time remains to turn things around.
But when will that happen? While the SEC is not the best basketball conference in the country, it’s still a very competitive league. There are tough matchups every night. All of the teams have great athletes.
Right now, it’s difficult to find many games where I can confidently say USC will be the favorite going in.
The one thing I do know is Eric Hyman won’t fire head coach Dave Odom prior to the end of the season. Hyman told me last week when I interviewed him for the two-part feature than ran Friday and today that he’s seen many teams reverse their sagging fortunes and become a good basketball team.
Of course, the vice grip around Odom will get tighter and tighter with each loss as the volume of the outcry from the fans gets louder and louder.
The Gamecocks do have talent. Maybe not enough, but they have players who have proven themselves on the Division I level. It’s just not working, right now.
What I find troubling, however, is words like effort and enthusiasm and lack of aggressiveness are starting creep into the vocabularies of Odom and the players.
Frankly, I hear those words too often from Gamecock players and coaches. And I’m not talking just about basketball either.
Have the players stopped listening to Odom? It’s possible that’s starting to creep in. That’s a fear on every major college athletic team that goes through a losing skid.
Is there hope? I can’t say for sure.
The biggest problem USC has right now is lack of diversity on offense. Essentially, two players are scoring most of the points – point guard Devan Downey and shooting guard Zam Fredrick.
USC’s forwards are, unfortunately, producing little offensively and not showing much resistance defensively. The three starting frontcourt players (Archie, Day, Holmes) combined to score 16 points and grab 14 rebounds against Tennessee.
Conversely, Tennessee’s two starting forwards (the Vols employ a three-guard attack) combined for 24 points and 11 rebounds. The Vols easily won that battle, even though it was two against three most of the night.
Holmes and fellow freshman forward Sam Muldrow have struggled mightily in their first seasons of Division I college basketball. Day, a senior, isn’t producing much either, though he played well defensively in the Vanderbilt loss last Wednesday.
Saturday, Fredrick wasn’t much of a factor against Tennessee, scoring 11 points on 3-for-10 shooting. So, that left it up to Downey.
As a result, here’s what we saw most of the night from the Gamecocks when they had possession of the ball – Downey dribbling the ball at the top looking for an opening to drive to the basket while the other four players stood around watching him.
What do we end up with? Downey took 17 shots and had a season-low one assist. Odom admitted after the game the scant offensive support Downey has received from his teammates is a “real problem with our team right now.”
But he couldn’t explain why the other four players were just standing frozen on the court watching Downey try to get to the basket. All he promised was that USC would “spend time on that.”
Where does USC go from here? I’ve always said that the first five conference games were crucial. Wednesday night the Gamecocks will be in Fayetteville to face Arkansas, which is 13-3 overall and 2-0 in the SEC.
It won’t get any easier after that with a home game against Florida Jan. 23 and a trip to Lexington to face Kentucky Jan. 26.
Vanderbilt found out the hard way on Saturday how difficult it is to go into Rupp Arena and win when they fell in double OT to the Wildcats. Kentucky has struggled this year by their standards, so a great game by the Gamecocks could make it interesting.
Bottom line, USC desperately needs a win.
If they don’t get one soon, it could get ugly both on and off the court.
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Believe it or not, South Carolina played its biggest basketball game of the season Saturday night against Tennessee.
Unfortunately, you couldn’t tell by the way USC performed, especially in the opening 10 minutes of each half.
The 80-56 loss to the nationally ranked Vols zapped the energy from most of the USC fans at the Colonial Center. It was yet another dreadful performance in a season that’s steadily spiraling downward.
Based on what I saw Saturday night, it appears my prediction of a 6-10 finish in the SEC was a bit optimistic. Yes, there’s still 14 conference games left to play and plenty of time remains to turn things around.
But when will that happen? While the SEC is not the best basketball conference in the country, it’s still a very competitive league. There are tough matchups every night. All of the teams have great athletes.
Right now, it’s difficult to find many games where I can confidently say USC will be the favorite going in.
The one thing I do know is Eric Hyman won’t fire head coach Dave Odom prior to the end of the season. Hyman told me last week when I interviewed him for the two-part feature than ran Friday and today that he’s seen many teams reverse their sagging fortunes and become a good basketball team.
Of course, the vice grip around Odom will get tighter and tighter with each loss as the volume of the outcry from the fans gets louder and louder.
The Gamecocks do have talent. Maybe not enough, but they have players who have proven themselves on the Division I level. It’s just not working, right now.
What I find troubling, however, is words like effort and enthusiasm and lack of aggressiveness are starting creep into the vocabularies of Odom and the players.
Frankly, I hear those words too often from Gamecock players and coaches. And I’m not talking just about basketball either.
Have the players stopped listening to Odom? It’s possible that’s starting to creep in. That’s a fear on every major college athletic team that goes through a losing skid.
Is there hope? I can’t say for sure.
The biggest problem USC has right now is lack of diversity on offense. Essentially, two players are scoring most of the points – point guard Devan Downey and shooting guard Zam Fredrick.
USC’s forwards are, unfortunately, producing little offensively and not showing much resistance defensively. The three starting frontcourt players (Archie, Day, Holmes) combined to score 16 points and grab 14 rebounds against Tennessee.
Conversely, Tennessee’s two starting forwards (the Vols employ a three-guard attack) combined for 24 points and 11 rebounds. The Vols easily won that battle, even though it was two against three most of the night.
Holmes and fellow freshman forward Sam Muldrow have struggled mightily in their first seasons of Division I college basketball. Day, a senior, isn’t producing much either, though he played well defensively in the Vanderbilt loss last Wednesday.
Saturday, Fredrick wasn’t much of a factor against Tennessee, scoring 11 points on 3-for-10 shooting. So, that left it up to Downey.
As a result, here’s what we saw most of the night from the Gamecocks when they had possession of the ball – Downey dribbling the ball at the top looking for an opening to drive to the basket while the other four players stood around watching him.
What do we end up with? Downey took 17 shots and had a season-low one assist. Odom admitted after the game the scant offensive support Downey has received from his teammates is a “real problem with our team right now.”
But he couldn’t explain why the other four players were just standing frozen on the court watching Downey try to get to the basket. All he promised was that USC would “spend time on that.”
Where does USC go from here? I’ve always said that the first five conference games were crucial. Wednesday night the Gamecocks will be in Fayetteville to face Arkansas, which is 13-3 overall and 2-0 in the SEC.
It won’t get any easier after that with a home game against Florida Jan. 23 and a trip to Lexington to face Kentucky Jan. 26.
Vanderbilt found out the hard way on Saturday how difficult it is to go into Rupp Arena and win when they fell in double OT to the Wildcats. Kentucky has struggled this year by their standards, so a great game by the Gamecocks could make it interesting.
Bottom line, USC desperately needs a win.
If they don’t get one soon, it could get ugly both on and off the court.
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Scott Hood. Since February of 2005, Scott has covered the South Carolina football, men's basketball and baseball programs for GamecockCentral. He may be reached by email at scottblog(at)gamecockcentral.com. Replace (at) with @.