PBC Tournament - USC Aiken Wins Defensive Battle Over Clayton State 60-50

AIKEN, S.C. -- In a low-scoring rematch of the 2008 Peach Belt Conference (PBC) Tournament Championship game, second seed and national No. 17 USC Aiken avenged last year’s loss with a quarterfinal victory over seven seed Clayton State University tonight (March 6) 60-50.

The host school, USCA improves to 22-6, advancing to play third seed Armstrong Atlantic State University tomorrow at 8 p.m. in the semifinals. The Lakers see their season come to a close at 15-14.

PBC Player of the Year Chris Commons went just 5-for-12 from the floor, including 1-of-5 from downtown, but finished with 17 points and six rebounds to lead the way for the Pacers before fouling out. Guard Kingsley Oguchi helped with 12 points.

The Lakers also had two double-figure scorers, as Bernard Fields had 15 with supersub Will Lewis adding 12 and six rebounds off the pine.

The hustle points all went Clayton’s way, as they took points in the paint (22-18), points off turnovers (13-8) and second-chance points (11-7). The difference came in a slight shooting advantage for the Pacers at 37.8 percent (17-45) to 31.3 (15-48), combined with a slow start for the Lakers.

The early going was all Pacers, as they held Clayton scoreless for the first 3:01. The Lakers failed to hit a field goal until the 9:07 mark in the half, when Lewis knocked down a drop-step lay-in from the left side and the Pacers led 12-3.

Lewis provided a slight spark to ignite the Laker offense, as Clayton went on a 15-11 run over the remainder of the first half, closing down 23-18.

Boxscore

PBC Tournament – Game Quotes – USC Aiken vs. Clayton State

Clayton State Head Coach Gordon Gibbons
“Aiken averages 80 points per game. Well, nobody scores 80 against us. The thing is, we had one point the first 10 minutes of the game and that’s been a little bit of our problem this year. We’ve had times this year where we’ve just struggled to score and today was obviously one of those. Nothing against USCA or what they were doing, but our offensive struggles have nothing to do with what the other team is doing, in most cases. We’ve just been inconsistent.”
“I wish for the fans we could have taken it down to one point, two point in the last 20 seconds, but some things didn’t fall for us.”
“You gotta give Aiken credit, they played the game out and did a good job against the press. They did what good teams have to do in March, which is win a close game.”

USC Aiken Head Coach Vince Alexander
“I thought it was a defensive battle. We knew coming into this game that we would have to defend as well as anything and that they would defend. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well, but the good thing is that we defended well so that they didn’t shoot well.”
“We kept trying to figure out some things to do offensively because they weren’t scoring and we thought defensively we were doing a tremendous job but we were just trying to figure out some different sets we could run to get things going.”
“Clayton does a really good job of forcing you to shoot outside shots. They are going to take your inside game away. They gave us the outside shots, we just weren’t making them.”
“I don’t think we get the credit around the league for being a defensive team. I think we have a good defensive team. “

USC Aiken’s Chris Commons
“Any time you’re in a tournament you want to match the other team’s intensity. They create points off of turnovers and pressure so in order to beat them. Everybody shot horribly, so we have to out-defend them to win the game.”

USC Aiken’s Kingsley Oguchi
“We knew it was going to be a battle. Last year, they took something from us and we just knew it was going to come down to who was going to execute more. Last year, when it came down to the wire we didn’t execute. They played harder than us and we knew that this year it couldn’t happen like that. So, that’s really what I am the most happy about is that we played harder and executed better than them.”