SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASKETBALL
When the buzzer sounded Sunday night, officially sealing the Gamecocks’ 67-54 win over Clemson and snapping a three-game losing streak, the two teams lined up for the traditional handshake line only for it to get interrupted by whistles.
As they were lining up, Jair Bolden and Clemson wing Tevin Mack were being separated by referees and, after a few seconds of jawing between either side, both teams left the court without doing the handshake line.
Frank Martin, who did shake hands with Clemson head coach Brad Brownell, spoke about the incident after the game and didn’t seem overly worried about it.
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“I don’t know. I got no idea. I can tell you what I was told, but you know how life works. I’m shaking Brad's hand, and I have no idea what’s going on behind me. Let me get it better for you since this is what our country’s dealing with right now. When you start telling the media what someone else told you, then you create a dossier. It creates a bad communication. I don’t want to be that guy that signs off on that dossier. I got no idea what happened behind me,” he said.
“It’s a competitive game. Brad does an incredible job. We’ve done this eight years against each other. It’s a class program. It’s nothing but class. We’ve never had a situation. Obviously something happened behind me. I had to do television, I had to address my team and then I had to come in here. I haven’t asked anyone what happened.”
Also see: Instant analysis from Sunday's win
Bolden and Mack obviously started snipping back and forth, over what is still unclear, and the teams went off the court without anything major happening outside of a few words being exchanged.
“I didn’t know what happened,” Maik Kotsar said. “I just heard something going on and then we went to the locker room. That’s pretty much what I saw.”
Bolden was one of the Gamecocks’ biggest offensive pieces, finishing with 10 points on 3-for-8 shooting and had two big threes late in the game to help keep South Carolina up by close to double digits.
Mack, who’s from Columbia and came to Clemson as a grad transfer this summer, finished with three points and four rebounds, shooting 1-for-8 from the field.
Martin mentioned after his press conference he would get the chance to talk to players and see what happened, but mentioned he saw something after the game he hadn’t seen of Bolden in a while this season.
“I’ll tell you what I did like. When I turned around, Jair—who I’ve been real mad at about being passive—was being aggressive. Now, if he started something, I’ll deal with him for that," he said. "There’s nothing there. Those are just two teams who are competitive. When the game ends, there’s a lot of emotion.”
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After the game, Martin and Brownell met briefly between press conferences and there was no hostility between two head coaches who are long-time friends.
Brownell told reporters after the game he’s not sure what happened.
“I didn’t see any of it. I just saw somebody grabbing Tevin,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. I’ll certainly look into it to find out what happened, but I didn’t see anything.”
The Gamecocks picked up a big win on the road Sunday, beating their archrival by 13 points to snap a three-game losing streak to Clemson.
They’ll be back on the court a week from today (Dec. 22) against No. 9 Virginia at 3 p.m.
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