*** USC MBB (5-1) @ Coastal Carolina (2-2) Game Thread ***

[kingofnerf]

We needed Couisnard's offense out there last night, too.

Keep diggin'.

 

[kingofnerf]

No way to sugar coat that turd we put up tonight. This is exactly the kind of loss that makes me pessimistic about our team. Maybe we can right the ship this weekend, but tonight leaves me with little hope of beating Georgetown.

nerf...Winthrop has been to a couple of NCAA tournaments the last few years. Last year they gave Villanova all they could handle before running out of steam late in that game. College of Charleston also made the 2018 tournament. PC has never been to the tournament.

I wasn't thinking and was blending Furman's 2018 season in with PC for some reason.

The darlings of the early college basketball season? That’s an easy one.

Say hello to the Furman Paladins. That would be the 5-0 Furman Paladins, who took their barnstorming tour into Finneran Pavilion Saturday and stunned Villanova 76-68 in overtime. Time to notice what these guys have been up to, and what they’re about. Thirteen things to know about the Paladins:

1. In the past nine days, they have upset half of last April’s Final Four. First, there was Clay Mounce’s dunk with 1.6 seconds left that beat Loyola of Chicago 60-58, after Furman trailed by 13 points in the second half. Then came Saturday, when all five starters scored in double figures, while the Paladins outrebounded Villanova by seven and defended the Wildcats into 33.8 percent shooting.

2. Furman is one of the smallest schools in Division I, with 2,700 students on the Greenville, S.C. campus.

3. The defending national champions were shocked Saturday by a program that has not appeared in the NCAA Tournament in 38 years. Furman has one NCAA Tournament victory in its history – 1974 against South Carolina.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2018-11-17/furman-villanova-score-recap

Furman went 25-8, but lost the SOCON championship 66-62 to UNC-Greensboro.  So they went to the NIT instead of the NCAAT where they lost to Wichita State 76-70 in the First Round.  WSU was defeated 71-64 by Lipscomb in the semi-finals, who Texas beat to win the 2019 NIT Championship.

I watched those NIT games and remembered Erik Stevenson from those games.  He transferred out after that season to Washington (also his home state) and then he came here this year.  Gregg Marshall was fired in the fall of 2020, so Erik made the right move.

Thanks for setting me straight on the other things.  I freely admit that I don't follow the other teams in the state as much as you and others.

 

[Gary]

I don't know If the team didn't take Coastal seriously,.  If they didn't they should have.  But I don''t think that will be an issue with Georgetown.    So if we mess up against them, I don't think it will be the result of taking them lightly.   Anyone can beat you if you play poorly.   The team should understand that well by now.

 

[kingofnerf]

I don't know If the team didn't take Coastal seriously,.  If they didn't they should have.  But I don''t think that will be an issue with Georgetown.    So if we mess up against them, I don't think it will be the result of taking them lightly.   Anyone can beat you if you play poorly.   The team should understand that well by now.

Ellis is far and away a better and more experienced coach than Ewing.

I think this is a team that will play very well at home because of the arena and the home crowd.  Frank has been the first coach to consistently get us SEC wins on the road.

We'll see.

 

[picknroll]

Frank runs an aggressive, high-energy defense that forces teams to play fast against us.  Ellis knows how to prepare his team for something like that.

If most of the team's energy was off due to the flu, you could see how an opposing team would take us to school.

This has looked like a really good team in the previous games.  Frank mentioned the bad shoot-around after the game, but he didn't seemed too concerned about it because he knows the team is good and will learn from its mistakes.

I am fighting "bad Gamecock sports fatigue" like most everyone else is right now, but we need to let December play out.

Especially after the Georgetown game, I really believe you are right on with these comments. I'm pretty certain this group is getting coached up and will progress during the season to be one of our better teams. I just hope and pray we can beat Auburn on 1/4, here at home. That would not only be a big win for our team, it would give me significant torment leverage over an Auburn friend of mine. 

 

[picknroll]

I don't worry at all about whether a coach has "national stature and reputation".    We've had several coaches who have had that and none of them could consistently win at USC.   If Frank is fired after the season, it wouldn't bother me at all to hire someone like Brian Steele.   Brian is young, and energetic, and smart.  He might be a fine head coach.  Of course I wouldn't pay him 3 million to start with.  Or give him a big buyout.  But I'd be very happy to have Steele as the head basketball coach.  i think he'd do well.  But, I'm hoping we go on to have a good season and Brian can be Frank's assistant a while longer.

Hey, you're right! Maybe we can find another Steve Newton or Darrin Horn!