**USC vs. Tennessee Game Thread**

[USCBASEBALL1]

Originally Posted by t8erh8er17

I'm tired of hearing the excuses. This team beat the #1 team in the country without Archie and Holmes. There is no reason why they can't at least be competitive against Tennessee. Move the ball a little bit and stop taking bad shots. It's time for some of our guys to start taking it strong to basket and at least draw some fouls.

They had a bad game and UT was on their A game and we are a bad bad matchup with them. Lets go ahead and fire Horn and start over, sounds like some of you think that would fix the problem.

[t8erh8er17]

Originally Posted by USCBASEBALL1

They had a bad game and UT was on their A game and we are a bad bad matchup with them. Lets go ahead and fire Horn and start over, sounds like some of you think that would fix the problem.

Fire Horn? Don't be absurd? It's just time that some of our young players grow up and for our older ones to man-up. It's like the Tennessee fans where chanting. It's the same thing our football team does. They sleep-walk during games half the time. It's not that they just had a bad game, they just never really showed up at all. The hustle was terrible. The shot selection was terrible. It was just an absolutely lazy effort all the way around.

[USCBASEBALL1]

Originally Posted by t8erh8er17

Fire Horn? Don't be absurd? It's just time that some of our young players grow up and for our older ones to man-up. It's like the Tennessee fans where chanting. It's the same thing our football team does. They sleep-walk during games half the time. It's not that they just had a bad game, they just never really showed up at all. The hustle was terrible. The shot selection was terrible. It was just an absolutely lazy effort all the way around.

Dude we lost 30 points a game between Archie and Holmes. They were upperclassmen yet you are expecting a bunch of 1st year players to replace that. Come on, be realistic at least.

What older players do we have that you expect all of a sudden to step up and replace that?

[t8erh8er17]

Originally Posted by USCBASEBALL1

Dude we lost 30 points a game between Archie and Holmes. They were upperclassmen yet you are expecting a bunch of 1st year players to replace that. Come on, be realistic at least.

30 points a game? More like 20 points a game. Downey was averaging like 18 points a game when those guys were in. So he has made up over half of that gap by himself. You would think with some of the increased minutes some of these young guys are getting now with those guys gone, that they could at least collectively make up for the other 10 points a game or so. I don't think that is unrealistic. If Jefferson and Jackson shot at least 60 percent from the free throw line they probably could make that up. It's like they've gotten more minutes but their production has actually gone down as a result. We can't have that. Every team has to deal with injuries. Archie is gone and has been for sometime now. When are we going to stop looking at what could've been instead of focusing on what needs to be done. I didn't expect to win this game, but I expected it to be much more competitive. I know that these guys are freshman. People tell me that every game. However, the season is 2/3 over now and I have seen little if any improvement from these guys. They have had too many poor games even for being freshman. It's time to start putting more pressure on these guys and start treating them like college basketball players not high school basketball players. They need to step up and start looking at least a little bit like the players we had expected to get. I am ok with the losing, just not with how we played and the incredibly weak effort by the majority of our guys. Everything has been put on Downey's shoulders and he just can not to it ALL by himself.

[USCBASEBALL1]

Originally Posted by t8erh8er17

30 points a game? More like 20 points a game. Downey was averaging like 18 points a game when those guys were in. So he has made up over half of that gap by himself. You would think with some of the increased minutes some of these young guys are getting now with those guys gone, that they could at least collectively make up for the other 10 points a game or so. I don't think that is unrealistic. If Jefferson and Jackson shot at least 60 percent from the free throw line they probably could make that up. It's like they've gotten more minutes but their production has actually gone down as a result. We can't have that. Every team has to deal with injuries. Archie is gone and has been for sometime now. When are we going to stop looking at what could've been instead of focusing on what needs to be done. I didn't expect to win this game, but I expected it to be much more competitive. I know that these guys are freshman. People tell me that every game. However, the season is 2/3 over now and I have seen little if any improvement from these guys. They have had too many poor games even for being freshman. It's time to start putting more pressure on these guys and start treating them like college basketball players not high school basketball players. They need to step up and start looking at least a little bit like the players we had expected to get. I am ok with the losing, just not with how we played and the incredibly weak effort by the majority of our guys. Everything has been put on Downey's shoulders and he just can not to it ALL by himself.

Your expectations are not realistic for the talent on this Team, simple as that.

This Team is not talented enough to be consistant.

Galloway and Jackson needed RS years. Jefferson and Galloway both were known as weak offensive players but above average Defenders. Horn said this before the season started so why are you surprised now?

UNC has a Team full of young McDonald's Parade All Americans that cannot get it done but we should expect Galloway and Jackson to have stepped up by now? Personally I think that is a crazy assumption but I like that both at least play hard and try to do their best.

[t8erh8er17]

Originally Posted by USCBASEBALL1

Your expectations are not realistic for the talent on this Team, simple as that.

This Team is not talented enough to be consistant.

Galloway and Jackson needed RS years. Jefferson and Galloway both were known as weak offensive players but above average Defenders. Horn said this before the season started so why are you surprised now?

UNC has a Team full of young McDonald's Parade All Americans that cannot get it done but we should expect Galloway and Jackson to have stepped up by now? Personally I think that is a crazy assumption but I like that both at least play hard and try to do their best.

I'm not asking them to be the LA Lakers, I am just asking them to do SOMETHING since they are the ones in the game getting so many minutes. Make half of your free throws. Make a layup every once in awhile score in double digits every once in a while. It's not just the freshman. Muldrow? Jefferson? Banulis? Railey-Ross? Muldrow and Railey-Ross show up every now and then, the rest of the team can't seem to give us any production AT ALL. That is not unrealistic to expect some production. We didn't recruit McDonald's All-Americans but I wasn't under the impression that we recruited complete scrubs, because that is what they are playing like.

[CarolinaCockStar]

Originally Posted by t8erh8er17

I'm tired of hearing the excuses. This team beat the #1 team in the country without Archie and Holmes. There is no reason why they can't at least be competitive against Tennessee. Move the ball a little bit and stop taking bad shots. It's time for some of our guys to start taking it strong to basket and at least draw some fouls.

Every time we move the ball we turn it over.....And we did the same thing against KY but Downey was able to take control of the game and they could not stop him. TN found a way to stop Downey and every time we moved the ball TN knew where it was going. No excuses there its called the facts!

[Luke Skycocker]

Not our best effort to say the least

[CarolinaCockStar]

Originally Posted by USCBASEBALL1

They had a bad game and UT was on their A game and we are a bad bad matchup with them. Lets go ahead and fire Horn and start over, sounds like some of you think that would fix the problem.

Wow i love how some people take stuff completely out of context.....Fire horn? I do not believe i saw anyone say lets fire horn and they were actually being serious. You are off your rocker dude sarcasm or not!

[t8erh8er17]

Originally Posted by CarolinaCockStar

Wow i love how some people take stuff completely out of context.....Fire horn? I do not believe i saw anyone say lets fire horn and they were actually being serious. You are off your rocker dude sarcasm or not!

I like USCBASEBALL. We usually see eye to eye, but not always. So let's not get personal on here. I don't want want to slam our players but we NEED them to step it up at least a little bit, and it's not alright for them be complete wastes of space simiply because they are freshman and they are trying. The honeymoon period is over. It's time for them to be college basketball players. Some of them have gotten more experience than most freshmen, and some of them are juniors and sophomores.

[CarolinaCockStar]

Originally Posted by t8erh8er17

I like USCBASEBALL. We usually see eye to eye, but not always. So let's not get personal on here. I don't want want to slam our players but we NEED them to step it up at least a little bit, and it's not alright for them be complete wastes of space simiply because they are freshman and they are trying. The honeymoon period is over. It's time for them to be college basketball players. Some of them have gotten more experience than most freshmen, and some of them are juniors and sophomores.

Yea this is true but i mean taking away Archie and Holmes basicly took the breathe out of this team. Those two guys were going to be the mentors to these new big guys we brought in. It was like Garcia on the football team....he had no mentor on the field he had to learn from the coach and its alot easier when you have someones footsteps to follow in versus just being told this is how you do it......Horn is a great coach and will have a chance to coach these guys up but without mentors it makes his job twice as hard and is going to take twice as long. We have never been a dominate basketball team so its hard to just expect an 18 year old kid (unless your are John Wall kid is an exception to most rules) to step up his game without at least a year or two of experience.

[tptgamecock]

I think we saw what the future can be against UK. I also think we got a lesson of where we are now against UT. I don't like UT either. But, we have to deal with it and move on to Florida. We play well at home so hopefully we can pull this one out and stay ahead in league play. Go Gamecocks!

[bulldogs0305]

tough came, cant win them all. basketball is a tough game, especially when the whole team is having a tough night shooting...

the people on here that choose to say "we suck" or "fire Horn"...9 outta 10 times have never played a sport in their life, and if they did...they sucked...you gotta know the game to know what youre talking about...

[CarolinaCockStar]

If great coach's got fired for losing games they were supposed to win or for losing period there would be no coach's left to coach!

[TripsRight]

We need another ball handler that can drive to the basket.

As soon as they double up on Downey and he passes to someone, it's like a turnover waiting to happen. How many times did we dribble the ball off our foot or just throw it away? RR needs to step up his handling skills and attack the basket. He's got to take some attention away from Downey.

Teams are starting to give us the 3 ball because apparently DD is the only one on our team who can consistently hit. I mean, they don't even guard Evka anymore.

[Ericvol2096]

You all must be anxious to play another game to get the taste of this butt-whoopin' out of your mouths!

[bmccall]

Originally Posted by Ericvol2096

You all must be anxious to play another game to get the taste of this butt-whoopin' out of your mouths!

I don't know how I'm going to feel, even playing you at home. It wasn't even a game, more of a spirited practice for UT with those matchups.

Guess I'll have to wait for football

or baseball

[DCGamecock5]

Originally Posted by Ericvol2096

You all must be anxious to play another game to get the taste of this butt-whoopin' out of your mouths!

Wow you're still talking about this game? Get over it man you beat one of the worst teams in the SEC...everyone knows if Downey don't get 30 fast we have no shot...

[crowcutta]

we didnt shoot well of course, but we have to be more careful with the ball, we held them to 2 points over the first 5 minutes and then we got careless with the ball. i really think coach horn needs to give more minutes to jefferson and steed and match them up against chism so muldrow can play off the ball. chism has enough weight and is crafty enough to basically neutralize any of muldrow's shot blocking ability then you have the added problem of muldrow having to go all the way out to the 3 point line to guard him as well. we obviously need to go zone at times, and you hate losing a ball handler, but i think it is the only way we can compete with tennessee.

we will play a lot better at home regardless, but i think we have to do what im suggesting because it should make us that much better defensively.