The Daily Gamecock

Duane Notice is back

 “Coach I love the team, but I’m really getting sick of watching Duane Notice miss shots. When are you gonna start playing someone else?”

A fan approached Frank Martin before Tuesday’s game versus Auburn and asked him this question. Martin said nothing back. He didn’t have to.

With a 27-point performance, on 9-13 shooting from the field, Duane Notice silenced everyone who had been questioning his shooting in recent games.

“Going into this game, I just knew we had to play well,” said Notice after South Carolina’s 29 point beat down of the Tigers.

And boy, did he do that.

From the minute his first three pointer went in with 12:46 left in the first half, there was absolutely nothing that the Tigers could do to slow him down.

“When he saw the first one go through the net, it just kinda made him relax a bit,” said Martin. “That first one for him is important.”

After his first shot was good, the hesitancy to shoot that Notice had displayed in recent games faded away. From that moment on he seemed in all out attack mode: driving through the lane and finishing with a reverse layup late in the first, drilling a three before the halftime buzzer from two feet behind the arc and hitting back to back threes near the 7:30 mark that brought fans to their feet to rejoice the return of their three point marksmen.

Coach Martin shouldered much of the blame for Notice’s recent struggles, citing him not getting enough shots to get into a rhythm during the past three games. Against the Tigers he made sure to do what he could to aid his senior guard.

“I had to do a better job of doing things to create space for him,” Martin said on the changes he implemented. “Like in the first half, when he made his first one, I ran a play right away for him again.”

It was this, coupled with him knocking down the open looks his coach got him, that propelled Notice out of his three game slump.

No longer were the fans speaking of him missing 13 of his last 17 shots.

Duane Notice is back.


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