Beamer Feels Team Handled Off Week Well

Head coach Shane Beamer said he feels the Gamecocks handled the time off with maturity and hopes to see that carry over into this week.

South Carolina earned their most significant victory in head coach Shane Beamer's tenure when they knocked off the No. 13 Kentucky Wildcats in Lexington. With the gravity of a result like that, some teams can get too high and mighty, thinking that they've arrived, while others crave the chance to replicate the performance that led to that game's outcome. 

When asked if he was worried about the hype getting to the player's heads during the bye week, Beamer conveyed a sense of confidence that his players have moved past the Kentucky game.

"This is a mature bunch. I think we showed that after the way we handled adversity earlier this season, the way we continue to get better. I think they showed that with the way that they handled the short week against South Carolina State. I think they showed their maturity with the way they played up in Lexington, [Kentucky], and I think honestly it’s good that we had the off week, cause we were able to-- I don’t want to say celebrate the Kentucky win a little bit longer, but certainly had some time to come back down to earth a little bit, and then correct and kind of reset where we are as we go forward into the second half of the season. I know they’ll be excited to play on Saturday night and [I'm] confident they’ll prepare the right way so they could go play well on Saturday night.”

The preparation leading into the Texas A&M game could tell whether the team is looking ahead to their upcoming opponent instead of relishing the significant win over the Wildcats. Both coaches and players said it was their best week of practice all season leading into that contest, and Shane Beamer hopes the team can find a way to replicate that this week.

"We talked to the team today in our team meeting [about how] we can’t just assume that everything’s okay cause we had a good week against Kentucky and think that it’s going to be that way going forward. We really, really grinded, and prepared to play like we did against Kentucky, and that work is done during the week, and we have to do it again this week as well. The physicality and the intensity and the effort that we practiced with was really good the week of the Kentucky game, and we’ll need to do it again this week for sure."

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