Basketball Starts The Stretch Run
posted by Scott Hood on Tuesday, February 12, 2008
You can use any adjective you want to describe it: agonizing, frustrating, gut-wrenching, bitterly disappointing, discouraging, baffling.
But here’s one thing it wasn’t – inevitable.
I’ve seen and heard a lot of fans squarely put the blame on Dave Odom for the loss, claiming “poor coaching” cost USC the game.
Please, stop it.
You can point the finger at Odom for a lot of things that have gone wrong for USC since his tenure began seven years ago. But, last Saturday’s loss is not one of them.
Odom has been an assistant or head coach in college basketball since 1976. That’s 32 years.
Knowing Odom and a little bit of how he wants his teams to play defense, I doubt he told his players to part like the red sea when the man with the ball is frantically dribbling down the court for the final shot.
Sorry, but this one’s on the players. They should fairly get the blame for that defeat. To their credit, most of the players said that afterwards.
But that’s ancient history.
So, how will the Gamecocks respond to such an emotionally draining loss?
Hopefully, by kicking the crap out of reeling Georgia in Athens on Wednesday night.
And, quite frankly, they should.
I’ll put it another way – at this point in time, there’s no excuse for losing to Georgia. I don’t care if they’re playing in Timbuktu, USC should win that game.
The Bulldogs are a bad basketball team right now. They’ve lost five games in a row and head coach Dennis Felton is, apparently, feeling the heat from a lot of folks in the Peach State.
He declined to appear on the SEC teleconference Monday, sending an assistant coach to answer questions from an increasingly skeptical media.
It's not a good sign when your head coach is ducking the media. I can assure you Odom would never pull a stunt like that.
But, besides being awful, Georgia is also dysfunctional. The latest episode resulted in Billy Humphrey, one of Georgia’s top scorers and its leading 3-point shooter, being suspended for three games. His crime? Underage drinking.
But that’s just the latest in a head-scratching string of suspensions and dismissals for Georgia. Last year’s two leading scorers – Mike Mercer and Takais Brown – were kicked off the team before the season began for breaking team rules.
But the worst part is the nonchalant way Humphrey took his punishment, saying he had “mixed feelings” about it and that the legal issues surrounding his case were a “nag.”
Say what you will about Odom, but at least his players have behaved themselves for the most part. Yes, there’s been a few isolated incidents here and there, but nothing approaches the level of problems Georgia is facing right now.
So, what will USC encounter on Wednesday? First, they’ll have to endure the ‘wrath’ of about 2,000 apathetic Bulldog fans inside the arena.
That kind of environment is scary because great players get revved up by a hostile crowd. USC has handled that well this season, battling Vanderbilt and Kentucky down to the wire in Nashville and Lexington, respectively, and beating Arkansas and Ole Miss on the road.
Wednesday’s game in Athens will mark the first time this season USC must deal with empty seats and silence in the home team’s arena. That’s tougher than it appears.
USC stands at 11-11 overall, 3-5 in the SEC. Based on their remaining schedule, they have a decent chance to finish .500 in the league.
After facing the woeful Bulldogs, USC has the three worst teams in the SEC West remaining on its schedule starting this Saturday night – Alabama (2/16), LSU (2/27) and Auburn (3/1). Those three clubs are a combined 5-21 in the conference.
That’s seven conference games USC should win. Is there an eighth victory out there to reach the .500 mark? Possibly Mississippi State next weekend during the 100th Year of Gamecock Basketball celebration.
The other three games left on the schedule are road trips to Florida and Tennessee and a home game against Kentucky (I call it the annual “blue-out game” because the upper bowl at the Colonial Center is always filled with UK fans). Honestly, I don’t see the Gamecocks winning those games.
So, barring an upset, whether USC finishes .500 in the league will likely come down to the Mississippi State game on Feb. 23.
If USC goes 5-3 down the stretch, that will give them a 16-14 record heading into the SEC Tournament in Atlanta. Even if they lost in the first-round there, they would qualify for the NIT or this new ‘third tournament’ created by ESPN.
Ah, March Madness is almost here.
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Unfortunately, six seconds of exceptionally poor defense trumped 39:54 of excellent basketball by South Carolina last Saturday night in the 66-65 loss to Vanderbilt.
You can use any adjective you want to describe it: agonizing, frustrating, gut-wrenching, bitterly disappointing, discouraging, baffling.
But here’s one thing it wasn’t – inevitable.
I’ve seen and heard a lot of fans squarely put the blame on Dave Odom for the loss, claiming “poor coaching” cost USC the game.
Please, stop it.
You can point the finger at Odom for a lot of things that have gone wrong for USC since his tenure began seven years ago. But, last Saturday’s loss is not one of them.
Odom has been an assistant or head coach in college basketball since 1976. That’s 32 years.
Knowing Odom and a little bit of how he wants his teams to play defense, I doubt he told his players to part like the red sea when the man with the ball is frantically dribbling down the court for the final shot.
Sorry, but this one’s on the players. They should fairly get the blame for that defeat. To their credit, most of the players said that afterwards.
But that’s ancient history.
So, how will the Gamecocks respond to such an emotionally draining loss?
Hopefully, by kicking the crap out of reeling Georgia in Athens on Wednesday night.
And, quite frankly, they should.
I’ll put it another way – at this point in time, there’s no excuse for losing to Georgia. I don’t care if they’re playing in Timbuktu, USC should win that game.
The Bulldogs are a bad basketball team right now. They’ve lost five games in a row and head coach Dennis Felton is, apparently, feeling the heat from a lot of folks in the Peach State.
He declined to appear on the SEC teleconference Monday, sending an assistant coach to answer questions from an increasingly skeptical media.
It's not a good sign when your head coach is ducking the media. I can assure you Odom would never pull a stunt like that.
But, besides being awful, Georgia is also dysfunctional. The latest episode resulted in Billy Humphrey, one of Georgia’s top scorers and its leading 3-point shooter, being suspended for three games. His crime? Underage drinking.
But that’s just the latest in a head-scratching string of suspensions and dismissals for Georgia. Last year’s two leading scorers – Mike Mercer and Takais Brown – were kicked off the team before the season began for breaking team rules.
But the worst part is the nonchalant way Humphrey took his punishment, saying he had “mixed feelings” about it and that the legal issues surrounding his case were a “nag.”
Say what you will about Odom, but at least his players have behaved themselves for the most part. Yes, there’s been a few isolated incidents here and there, but nothing approaches the level of problems Georgia is facing right now.
So, what will USC encounter on Wednesday? First, they’ll have to endure the ‘wrath’ of about 2,000 apathetic Bulldog fans inside the arena.
That kind of environment is scary because great players get revved up by a hostile crowd. USC has handled that well this season, battling Vanderbilt and Kentucky down to the wire in Nashville and Lexington, respectively, and beating Arkansas and Ole Miss on the road.
Wednesday’s game in Athens will mark the first time this season USC must deal with empty seats and silence in the home team’s arena. That’s tougher than it appears.
USC stands at 11-11 overall, 3-5 in the SEC. Based on their remaining schedule, they have a decent chance to finish .500 in the league.
After facing the woeful Bulldogs, USC has the three worst teams in the SEC West remaining on its schedule starting this Saturday night – Alabama (2/16), LSU (2/27) and Auburn (3/1). Those three clubs are a combined 5-21 in the conference.
That’s seven conference games USC should win. Is there an eighth victory out there to reach the .500 mark? Possibly Mississippi State next weekend during the 100th Year of Gamecock Basketball celebration.
The other three games left on the schedule are road trips to Florida and Tennessee and a home game against Kentucky (I call it the annual “blue-out game” because the upper bowl at the Colonial Center is always filled with UK fans). Honestly, I don’t see the Gamecocks winning those games.
So, barring an upset, whether USC finishes .500 in the league will likely come down to the Mississippi State game on Feb. 23.
If USC goes 5-3 down the stretch, that will give them a 16-14 record heading into the SEC Tournament in Atlanta. Even if they lost in the first-round there, they would qualify for the NIT or this new ‘third tournament’ created by ESPN.
Ah, March Madness is almost here.
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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 @.