AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Clayton State withstood a furious, late-game
rally from USC Aiken and upset the top-seeded and sixth-ranked
Pacers 60-58 Saturday in the third quarterfinal game of the opening
day of the 2008 NCAA South Atlantic Regional in Christenberry
Fieldhouse.
With the victory, the Lakers improved to 18-14 and will face the
winner of Saturday’s last quarterfinal matchup between No. 4
Virginia Union and No. 5 Lenoir-Rhyne. The win also marks Clayton
State’s second victory over USC Aiken in six days -- the
Lakers topped the Pacers 89-87 in triple overtime on Sunday, March
9 at the USCA Convocation Center to capture the Peach Belt
Conference Tournament championship.
Michael Sloan and Tracey Williams each tallied 14 points for the
Lakers, while Bernard Fields added 10 points.
Cordaryl Ballard notched a game-high 20 for the Pacers, who had
four players reach double figures. Jeremy Fears netted 16 points,
Chris Commons managed 11 and Job Casimir chipped in 10, all in the
second half. The loss ended the season for USC Aiken, the Peach
Belt Conference regular-season champions, at 27-4.
The Lakers shot 52.5 percent from the floor and limited USC Aiken
to just 36.7 percent shooting from the field. The Pacers went just
5-for-27 from long distance.
Clayton State led 56-46 with 3:48 remaining when the Pacers began a
furious rally. USCA rattled off a 9-0 spurt that included five
points from Casimir, pulling to within one at 56-55 on a layup by
Commons.
Williams answered with two free throws with 47 seconds left.
QUOTES
Clayton State Head Coach Gordon Gibbons
“Our team is built around defense. Our team felt like,
without a doubt, they could come in here and come out with a
victory. But the one thing you know about Vince Alexander’s
teams and about playing USC Aiken, they are not going to quit and
they have extremely talented players. You saw that in the last five
or six minutes. They were going to come at us as hard as they
could. We probably got a little tentative, but you can do that
sometimes with the lead. Then we missed four free throws down the
stretch that, if we made them, might have made things a little
easier.
“This is the readiest we’ve been for Aiken’s
stuff. In the tournament, you have 15 hours to ready. This week, we
had a week to get ready. When you can hold a guy who I consider
among the best in the country in Chris Commons to 11 tonight,
that’s a credit to our defense and these guys.”
“They had hurt us a couple of times down the stretch by
really running it back at us. But I had players cramping up and
could not sub, so we had to stand pat and it kind of hurt
us.”
Clayton State’s Michael Sloan
“We were ready to play. We got excited to show everybody that
the first time wasn’t a mistake. You hear the buzz that (last
week) was a fluke; you had to go to three overtimes...you barely
won. So, we went out and proved everybody wrong tonight.”
Clayton State’s Brian Kelley
“On offense we just wanted to come out and execute and take
good shots. Lately, we’ve been coming out and taking our time
on offense, running through it, making their defense work and then
getting open shots.”
(On Blocking Job Casimir’s Last Shot): “I saw him
coming down the court. I thought they were going to call a timeout,
but he was coming and I hurried to get back. I was just trying to
get there and contest it. He took a tough shot and he missed
it.”
USC Aiken Head Coach Vince Alexander
“They slow it down a lot and drag the game out. It gets us
out of our rhythm and they do a good job of that. We want to be in
the 80’s and 90’s and they want to be in the 50’s
and 60’s, so they make you play their style of game and the
only way we can get into it is to get up and pressure them a little
bit.”
“We got off to a slow start. We wanted to go to a zone and
try to stop them from coming off those screens and put up some
quick shots. They came out and hit a couple of those and it kind of
backfired on us; when you come out with a game plan, you look to
that to help you. When they hit a couple of shots, your players
start to question that and I think that might have hurt us
defensively.”
“You got to make shots. I thought they were being real
physical. I thought our guys, on the other end, felt like they
could be physical as well. We felt like they could play physical
while we couldn’t.”
USC Aiken’s Chris Commons
(On breaking his nose during the game): “I wouldn’t say
it took me out of my game. It made me, at first, a little tentative
because I didn’t want to get hit in the nose again. But it
didn’t matter, I didn’t want to lose. We played, I got
hit...it happens.”
“I’m going to be honest. Its right in front of the ref.
On the other end of the court, we’re getting blocking fouls,
hand checks...I felt like for the last seven games we haven’t
been able to play physical. I’m not going to make any excuses
though: we still should have won this game tonight, and I say that
with confidence. I give Clayton State all the respect in the world
because they came out, they wanted it, and they overmatched our
intensity. They had a lot of motivation whereas we, I believe,
including me, got complacent. You have to put teams away or
they’re going to put you away.”
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