South Carolina coach Frank Martin strolled into his postgame interview late Tuesday night after his team’s 70-67 loss at Tennessee and took a seat.
“I hope we can get home before two in the morning,” Martin said. “Nothing better than playing at 9 p.m. Two East Coast teams at 9 p.m.”
A bus was waiting outside the arena to take his team to a plane that would take the Gamecocks back to Columbia, where they would get on another bus that would take them back to campus in time to get a few hours of sleep before 8 a.m. classes.
Two teams from the Eastern time zone were slotted in a 9 p.m. Eastern contest on Tuesday night while two teams from the Central time zone played at 6 p.m. Central. This happened, presumably, because of the preference of ESPN/SEC Nework.
Martin thought enough of this oddity to point it out with the first words he spoke to the media.