Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks. Baseball midweek wins, a football coach leaves, and the men's basketball team slide continues. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:54] Okay.
[00:00:56] Welcome to episode 377 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. Hope y' all had a great week. Gamecocks ready for a nice weekend here. Looks like it's gonna be absolutely gorgeous here, at least in the Queen City, but, man, just finally a weekend to get out, maybe go catch a baseball game, enjoy some drinks in the sun. Oh, my goodness. Like, you can taste that spring energy and spring summer energy just right around the corner. I absolutely love it. Wall to wall action around Gamecock nation. Gamecock sports, college sports. It's just. Oh, man, a really fun time of year as we're heading into that home stretch. I'm going to talk about it here with the ladies basketball in a second here, but you're having a lot of regular seasons wrap up and you're starting to come into vision of the NCAA tournament, SEC tournament and all that. So a very exciting time. And of course, baseball and softball are ramping up here, but do got a good amount of stuff to touch on. So let's jump right into it here with a week in review. Really only one score to go over here.
[00:02:09] Tuesday.
[00:02:10] The women's golf finished 11th in the moon Golf Invitational. So maybe not our best work there. But, hey, early in that season as well, plenty of time to get hot and finish on a high note, just like the ladies did last year. And then I do have a note from the football team. I think this news broke literally the second that I published last episode. So that's just show business right there. But you probably saw already, special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis is no longer with the program. He's going back to the NFL with the Las Vegas Raiders.
[00:02:47] Kind of stinks that were late in the. Or, you know, kind of late in the football calendar year, I should say, for this to be happening. A lot of staffs are set and everything, and you have recruiting trips that I'm sure Joe was a part of, and now that gets all out of whack. I'm not terribly surprised by this news, though. He was an NFL lifer, spent so much time there, made his way, little detour into the college game. But personally, I always felt in the back of my mind it was a matter of time before he goes back. We had Kai Kroger on the show, of course, and he talked about having Joe said he was a fantastic coach and resource for him and his journey into the NFL as well. So it's going to be some pretty big shoes to fill. But while special teams had its moments last year, much like the entire team, it's not like anything was groundbreaking with with that unit, if that makes sense. So you want to have someone in there who's very capable. Beamer is going to of course prioritize special teams and whatnot. I have no idea what direction he's going to go, if he's going to go back to the NFL ranks, if he's going to try and find an up and comer, if he's going to give Pete Lembo a call and say hey, are you down to not be a head coach anymore? Like I I don't know. But nonetheless be on the lookout for a new coach potentially. I know in the past Bieber has said if he can't have the right coach to run the special teams that he would do it. I don't think that's going to be the case anymore. I think there's enough on Beamer's plate as is and like his seats already warm enough. Could you imagine if he calls an ill timed fake like just no, don't eat it, don't need that. But moving on to scores and games that are already actually happening here. Talking baseball team two midweek games for the Yardcock so really just quickly getting the bad taste out of our mouths from the finale of that first season or first series there. Excuse me. Tuesday evening the guys took on Wofford and got a nice win. 8 2.
[00:05:01] The Gamecocks took control of this game in the middle innings and got some insurance late to end up with what was a really comfortable win. And I was impressed with this win, right? I was impressed with the pitching staff in this one. There was a late switcheroo by Palminieri and who was starting the midweek games and Connor Ciccoli got the nod and went five innings allowing just one run with some solid bullpen help behind him. Player Highlights KJ Scobie 4 for 5 with 3 rib Talmadge, Lee Croy 2 for 5 with 1 RBI. First time really talking about Talmadge. I feel like in this very young season, but a veteran who I'm hopeful can continue to progress has some real highs with Talmadge. Has some. He's streaky, right? And so hopefully he can be a little bit more consistent for this squad this year. And then on Wednesday afternoon the team took on Gardner Webb at Home and got a run rule win first one of the year 12 2.
[00:06:03] So despite Gardner Webb striking first, Carolina had an offensive eruption. It seemed like in the middle innings scoring every which way honestly. Home runs driving men in when they were on base, scoring on wild pitches, taking advantage of mistakes and all behind another strong pitching effort. Bradley Hodges got the start in a no decision. Zach Russell got the win going two and a third player highlights from this game. Will Craddock 3 for 3 was great to see that from him. And Eric Parker 1 for 5 with 2 RBI. So look, this was an impressive back to back games here.
[00:06:41] I know I really jumped on it when the team lost the third game of the year and Paul Manieri said that he didn't have the team ready to play and they were lethargic and all that and all that's incredibly still true and incredibly valid. Baseball is a funny sport. Like you can get as mad as hell for one game and then you got five more the next week and you can go three or four for five and all is well in the world.
[00:07:13] You know something that they talked about going into these next couple of these last few games, excuse me, were performing and hitting with guys on base. Minari said they worked on that a lot in practice leading up to these games and he was happy and I think the fans are too with how they performed in that area. And that's something that struggled with last year and it was seemingly a point of emphasis and it was something that needed to be worked on right away. And so I was glad to see that be addressed and monary to talk about that publicly and to see some results. This means, especially in that garter web game, you know, just it was that's exactly what you want to do in these midweek games, especially early in the year and especially when you're going against weaker teams. Right. You need to take advantage of that. And I don't think I was alone in going into these midweek games a little trepidatious where because of how the first series ended saying like okay, we should be better than these guys and we should be able to handle this in every which way. But we thought that for the three games to start the year and you know there was a little change up with who the starter is last minute and that felt kind of weird. You had some new guys in the lineup and they delivered. So hopefully this is a sign of things to come.
[00:08:44] Again, I talked about it before the season started and while my expectations like long term in this year were lower than the standard that we're used to at South Carolina, the hope was that this team would still be better than last year. And last year's team struggled mightily at times.
[00:09:06] So to improve on that and still be below this, you know, gamecock standard, you're going to have some hiccups and they're not going to be fun. I'm not going to sit here after a loss and say, that's all right, you know, because we're at a very critical juncture in this program and with this coaching staff that I think we need to be critical of them. Right. We need to look at these losses and make sure that you nip anything in the bud, which seemingly they did going into this pair of games here. So all told, it was impressive from the team, you know, didn't let that loss mount up or you know, like bite them in the butt again in this midweek, getting into the swing of things still back to back games, that is a little wacky when you talk about the midweek flow of a season.
[00:09:57] And so it was impressive to see the team handle business and especially, you know, when you're at home to be able to do that. And if you can play well at Founders and bring the fans to the stands, put a good effort in, make it hard to win there, that can make for a decent season. Right. And then find a way to be better on the road than you were last year. And you're right in that recipe for being more successful and you know, maybe being a team that's hard to.
[00:10:25] Hard to beat. Right. And that's really the goal where we're at right now. And if this is any indication, you could have some pretty good pitching, you could have some decent bullpen help, and you could get guys scoring in a variety of ways from different contributions. Right? Like KJ has been solid for us so far. Talmadge had a good game in the first one. Then you're talking about Eric park and Will Craddock in the second game. And that's exactly what you want. You know, you don't want to be too top heavy with your lineup. You don't want it to be just a couple of guys if they go, you go type deal. So was really glad to see this midweek couple of games go the way that they did.
[00:11:04] Up next for the squad, it is Salute the Troops weekend at Founders Park. I don't know about this until just the, just the other day, like looking this up, right? The Gamecocks will face Army, Navy and Air Force at Founders Park. I think Marshall is involved in this as well. It's some sort of lack of a better term, a tournament. So pretty cool to see, especially early in the year. I mean, you know, salute the troops. Thank you for your service. Absolutely. I mean, what more can you say? Pretty excited for that. And look, I mean, it's. Playing the service academies is always an interesting measuring stick. Right. But they're good athletes. You know, they, you know, maybe you're going to school for bigger and better things than playing baseball, but you're not playing, you know, whoever tech, you know, you're playing, you know, teams that have good infrastructure around them. So it will be a good measuring stick there. Also, you know, I mean, how do you feel if, you know, if you run rule the Navy, like, sorry, you know, I want to beat our armed forces here, but respectfully, you know, get a good handshake line at the end of the game, something like that.
[00:12:21] But. All right, moving gears here, over to the hardwood, talking basketball here, men's basketball specifically. They took the floor Tuesday night and took on Florida in Gainesville, dropping the game 76 to 62 to continue the losing streak for South Carolina.
[00:12:42] I'm still just at a point where it's.
[00:12:45] I don't really know what to say. Like, I'm very conscious of sounding like a broken record, but there's not much more to be said. Like, we have. We kept losing. We're losing and losing and losing. We're losing by 14 points, 20 points, 10 points. We're close at the half. We're not. You, you have a good second half. Meeche Johnson's good. The rest of the team stinks. Like it's, it's. What more can you say, right? And I don't mean everyone stinks. Right. I'm just like throwing stuff out there. It's like these are the conversations that we're having amongst ourselves as fans, as friends and family and just like, what the heck is going on here?
[00:13:26] And like, I'm seeing stats out there of like, just how bad this two year stretch has been.
[00:13:36] It's historically bad. Like not just South Carolina and not just South Carolina in the sec, which is relatively young history compared to the school, but it's an all time historically bad conference wide stretch of Lamont Paris losing percentage.
[00:14:03] And I'm just hitting my head against the wall, you know, hoping that we see a change, you know, and it's just there's been no indication one way or the other, which I think some people out there are nervous that Paris will be retained. I have no authority to say any of this. I don't have sources. Like I said, I'm just an average dude, right? I'm just an average Gamecock fan. I don't see how a athletic department that wants to be taken seriously could retain Paris.
[00:14:38] There's all this talks of, well, you know, you're gonna. You can allocate more nil and things like that, yada, yada, yada. I just don't see how it happens, you know, I think Donati was like, kind of on the job last basketball season. He was like, hired, like, you know, kind of waiting in the wings.
[00:14:57] Now he's taken on full time as AD He's. This is happening under his watch. He did not hire Lamont Paris.
[00:15:06] He made the decision on the football side of things to retain Shane Beamer. But you can tell his fingerprints are all over some of these hires.
[00:15:14] And I think his fingerprints are going to be all over the basketball side of things. Because when you look around the league and you talk about revenue, sports and things like that, men's basketball is one.
[00:15:25] And if you can put down a good product, that opens up a whole new source of revenue. Revenue stream. Revenue stream, Right. That's. We're not talking tv.
[00:15:35] You're talking about people trying to buy suites, luxury, you know, nice. Those front row tickets, courtside seats.
[00:15:41] You got to put together some sort of competitive program here. And right now we are not. And it's just depressing. It's like. That's what it is. It's just like, I don't want to talk about men's basketball, but I have a duty to talk about it as the host of this program, which I love, and I love the Gamecocks. And I want so bad to be good at men's basketball, but we're ass.
[00:16:04] Like, we're just bad.
[00:16:06] And so that's. That's all there is. Like, I, you know, I can just go on rants like this about how bad we are, but it's just not productive. And here I am again doing it, and I'm probably gonna do it again Monday.
[00:16:21] It's just sad. It's just sad. And so, you know, you're, you know, talking about regular season closing. Like, do you get any indication then I, I think us fans just want to know something, right? If you are going to retain him, just let us know already.
[00:16:37] And I. That's why I don't think it's happening.
[00:16:40] And do you move on at the end of the regular season, ahead of the SEC tournament? Do you let him finish The SEC tournament and that's it.
[00:16:53] I don't know. I mean, I, I don't think it really matters. You know what I mean? And we just see how it goes. But I don't know what the heck. Like, this is mismanagement. And if, if it isn't, if it is an nil deal, like, apparently he got more nil money going into this year. And so then you're just bad at it. Like, you know, and I like there, there's coaches out there who win with less. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if there are coaches who can, who have put together like consistent programs with, with less like talent wise or whatever, like, we can do it. You know what I mean?
[00:17:33] I don't know. The next game for the guys will be Saturday, 1pm against Mississippi State at home. I'm not giving a crow to the game. Not worth my time.
[00:17:44] Just, just, just show us something.
[00:17:46] I can, I can give you every single crow to the game. Every, you know, my limited basketball knowledge. But just go out there, just go out there and find a way to win. My God.
[00:17:58] Women's basketball. It's nice to talk about women's basketball. Just, you know, should spend more time thinking about the ladies. They are coming off, of course, that huge win at lsu. Still riding high on that. And just seeing the fallout from LSU fans is absolutely hilarious.
[00:18:12] We have just broken that fan base. It is hilarious.
[00:18:16] The ladies, they are currently taking on Alabama. Not the first time we've coincided with their game, so sending good vibes to them as always. Their next game, however, will be Sunday at noon at Colonial Life. It's really the home stretch of the regular season here. Only a few more games for the ladies. They are taking on Ole Miss in this game. The Rebels are currently ranked 17th in the country, sitting at 21. 6 overall, 84 in the SEC. It is worth talking about a crow to the game for this squad. And I'm going to say dominate the glass. When you look at some of the numbers here, that's something that Ole Miss is pretty good at. And you're going to be wanting to. You're going to want to be able to dominate that. And when we've had those good games where we're working it down low offensively and defensively on the glass, whatever it may be, things have tended to go pretty well for this squad. So we'd love to see that again on Sunday.
[00:19:10] But with that, y', all, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media, Twitter or X is Cox Gamecocks Instagram is just the name of the show. Cox Talking Gamecox. And please like subscribe and review the podcast. Like I appreciate all y' all go Cox.
