Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, baseball hits the road. The NFL draft is here, and a lot of transfer news from across different programs. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:55] Okay. Welcome to episode 315 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. Hope y'all are ready for a great weekend out there. Gamecock Nation. Lot going on. A lot going on. Sports wise, got baseball in action, playoff hockey, playoff basketball. Just that time of year where really anywhere you look, there's going to be some action going on. So really excited for that. And if you're listening to this now, we will be officially underway in the NFL draft. I'm recording this just before it starts because I want to watch it from beginning to end, but first round would have been underway. And it's a really cool time of year where for us college football junkies and fans of a big time program, we get to see where these guys take their talents. You know, get to watch their dreams turn to reality. So it's pretty cool. And especially when we're talking about a player like Nicki Manwari, Od Fortune, Tonka Boogie Kai, like these guys who are kind of now the old school of staying at a program for four years, developing and then working your way to the league. It's. It's really, really cool to see. Not to say I'm not going to be excited to see where Canard or Rocket goes, but y'all catch my drift? There. But gonna be really interesting to see. So hopefully you're listening to this now and Nicky Manwari has found himself a home. Maybe TJ slides into the to the late first, but I really do think it feels like that Nicki Minwari is a first rounder and sure hope he goes somewhere where he is. His talents can really shine. I think he'll shine anywhere. But it'd be great to see him go to a competitive team that has a defense that's solid that he can just really help. Sure. Up the back end of. But nonetheless gonna be really cool to watch over these next few days. And then of course, next episode, I will recap where all the guys went. But alright, let's jump into things here. I have my handy dandy Gamecock calendar to kick us off here. It is a piece of trivia for y'all here. So let's see what we got.
[00:03:19] Who were the first South Carolina beach volleyball players to be named all Americans, y'all? I have no idea. I support Gamecock volleyball Y'all know me. I list all the sports in their scores, and we. We track them. I. That's a level of. Of knowledge I just do not have. So let's see.
[00:03:42] Katie Smith and Skylar Allen from 2021. Shout out. Kaylee and Skylar. That's a pretty cool accomplishment.
[00:03:50] First South Carolina beach volleyball players to be all Americans. That's pretty cool. That's an accomplishment. Crazy it took that long. But yeah, how about that? Cool. But speaking of midweek scores and things like that, I don't have anything to report for y'all. South Carolina's softball team canceled their game. I think maybe because of weather. Their midweek game, men's golf is currently in action in the SEC championship. Don't have any finals to report, so don't have any scores to update y'all with. Feels kind of weird, but there is still plenty of news from several programs to go over. So buckle up, open your brain for some knowledge. And here we go. So starting off with football, we got a few pieces of transfer news. All. All the news we're going to have here is all transfers, all roster movement. It's that time of year.
[00:04:45] The Cox are keeping the show busy here. So first, offensive lineman Cam Pringle and quarterback Dante Reno both entered the transfer portal.
[00:04:59] These were interesting. I'll start with Dante Reno.
[00:05:04] Look, maybe not the most terribly surprising. He was, like, such a nice guy, it seems like, and he was really enthusiastic when he committed to usc. He was really one of the more prominent figures who were on social media, like, chirping at guys, tweeting at them, like saying, hey, like, come to usc. Like, doing his bit in recruiting. And I'm sure when they were on campus, he was very enthusiastic. As a quarterback, though, you can kind of look at the room right now and figure somebody's going to be the odd man out. And I just think in this case, it was Dante Reno. You have Lenore Sellers for this year. Who knows about. Next, you bring in Air Nolan, a really highly recruited guy behind him. Cutter woods looked great in the spring game. Highly recruited guy. And then you're probably going to be bringing in another recruit afterwards. So I just think it's a deal where buried in the depth chart, the guy wants to play. Can't blame him. He's the son of a coach. He's competitive. So I wish him nothing but the best. Shout out Dante Reno. And then Cam Pringle. I was a little surprised by this. I mean, it's tricky when we talk offensive lineman because you get recruited and a Lot of times you have to develop and a lot of times coaches and programs, you have just a ton of offensive linemen. So it's not always necessarily about cracking the too deep just because a lot of it's a waiting game and getting more physically able to. This was a big time recruit. I remember when Pringle decided to commit to South Carolina. It was a big deal. You know, that was a big time recruiting win for South Carolina. I think this is though a situation where buried on the depth chart didn't really play. I think he has had some nagging injuries that has limited some of that development. So he probably just wants a fresh start. I hate to see it just from the standpoint of offensive line has been suspect around Columbia for some time. Hopefully this year those that entire group takes another step forward. But to have that talent and the highly rated guys just on the roster like around the the coach and just in case something happens you like.
[00:07:25] But nonetheless Cam decided to move on. So a case where, you know, I actually do really truly wish both these guys the best. I always do.
[00:07:33] But you know, sometimes there's surprises. This one you can kind of empathize with both of these. These here. But on the flip side of all this, the Gamecocks added via the transfer portal, defensive end George Wilson. So George Wilson is coming in from Campbell. He had a brief stop at Florida State, but before all that he was originally committed to South Carolina out of high school to Will Muschamp Bleh like wow, like what a boomerang, right? So brief stop at Florida State where he red shirted and I think played briefly. And then he goes to Campbell for two years where he was pretty productive. 34 tackles, seven sacks in two seasons. He's listed at 64230. He has one year of eligibility remaining and he has all the physical traits that you want. Was good enough to be recruited by us at a high school, good enough to go to Florida State out of high school, went down a notch. Got some good playing time, got some experience developed and he's ready to rock. So you're looking at what South Carolina is doing. And I made this joke on social media, but you're basically just. It's like Moneyball. You're replacing Kyle Kennard in aggregate. You know, you're trying to find someone who can be disruptive opposite of Dylan Stewart. So you have a few transfers that come in. Campbell's the more recent one. Brown from Mizzou is dealing with some injuries. So maybe that's worse than we know. But of course you have dez, you have Brian Thomas, you have JT gear. Like there are guys on this roster here. And so basically I think this staff is saying let's bring in high ceiling guys, coach them up and see if we can't hit on one of these guys. But if not, we're at least going to have fresh bodies to throw at this problem.
[00:09:34] And that might work. You know, you're going to have Dylan Stewart there, Ballin on one end, and on the other end you're going to have a rotation of three guys at least. And so maybe come the fourth quarter, you're telling me a fresh Des or Brian Thomas can't get home against a tired offensive line. I'll take that bet. I'll absolutely take that bet. So, yeah, George Wilson, welcome home. It's a good pickup. It's a good pickup. And then sticking with the transfer news here, only shifting to men's basketball here Lamont Paris added transfer Mike Shram Jobs Shah, sorry, Mike for. From Utah, originally from Mongolia, hence the somewhat unique last name. He's funny. He's a really versatile player is Mike. He's depending on where you look, he's either listed as a guard or a small forward. So he is a little bit taller for a guard. But last season he averaged seven points and three rebounds. But he plays hard, he's versatile. I think he can fit into Paris's system. Well, you need to bring guys in after all the attrition that we've had. He was sought after, played in the power four, was somewhat productive. Right. If he can come and average that, maybe increase that a little bit, you know, we'll certainly take that as a rotation piece for sure.
[00:11:03] And then sticking on the hardwood here, Don Staley got in the action just in. He was a transfer palooza this last week or so in Columbia. It's fun. It's exciting. Don Staley added a big piece, pun intended, in landing transfer commit Medina Ocott. Now, Medina is 6 foot 6. She's a center who spent last season at Mississippi State where she averaged 11 points and nine rebounds. This is the type of player we missed last year. I know Ashlyn Watkins went down, but this type of player, when you look at those numbers, 11 points and nine rebounds at an SEC school, that is exactly the type of player that we missed last year. That is your Camila Cardozo. That is your Aaliyah Boston. Like someone who's right around a double double A game, can block shots, can extend possessions for you on the offensive glass, and someone who you can rely on in the post.
[00:12:12] We had good production from Saniya and Khloe, but I think there was just a level of physicality and physical presence that they just lacked at times.
[00:12:25] And I think Don's teams are at their best when you have a dominant presence in the post. Now Ashlyn Watkins is going to be working her way back from the ACL injury.
[00:12:38] That recovery time is quicker than it once was. It's still a long process and you don't certainly don't want to rush it back.
[00:12:47] So with the new look team, so to speak, you know, Saniya going to the wnba, you need to have someone in that role. So this is a big pickup. This is absolutely a big pickup. I'm excited for it. We should be excited for it. And you know, you look around and Don has done some really good work via the transfer portal, adding top players at their position and then maintaining a good core too.
[00:13:18] But all right, that's your transfer News of the Week. Check in next time for any updates. It seems like it's just never ending, which on one hand it's fun, right? You know, it's news, we get to talk about it. But on the other hand, you know, there is the part of college sports where we all maybe miss a little bit, but we're not going to get into all that now. So yeah, we'll keep you abreast on all the updates around Carolina transfers, but there are still sports being played right now. So we're talking baseball here. The Yardcocks were in action Tuesday night against North Florida.
[00:13:52] I can't believe this is the second time in however many months that we're talking about North Florida. You remember basketball played them. They handed us an early season loss and we tried to act like that wasn't a red flag. Yeah, well, we played them in baseball too. So quickly the Gamecocks and the Ospreys are developing some sort of rivalry here because this game was competitive too. This game had way more drama than I would have liked. Things were tied up 00 until the middle innings. Nathan hall hit a two run blast in the fifth, but UNF would tack on runs to tie things and the game headed into extras.
[00:14:32] And then who other but KJ Scoby walked us off with a ground rule double. Absolutely love a walk off win. Gets the juices going big W. That would have been an absolute catastrophe if the guys blew a lead and lost an extras to unf. But we don't have to have that conversation because we won.
[00:14:53] Jackson Susi got the start and A no decision. He pitched well, though. I believe it was five innings. He pitched well, but he got an. He got an ND there. Brendan Sweeney got the win. And relief up next for the Gamecocks. The team travels to Lexington to take on Kentucky. Now, when you look at this, the history of this, Carolina has had Kentucky's number going up. There is a tricky place to play. But this year, you know, South Carolina has struggled for the most part against SEC competition. Kentucky is 8 and 10 in conference, 23 and 15 overall. Our pitching rotation for the weekend is Friday, Brandon stone, Saturday, Jake McCoy, and Sunday, TBA. Now, first thing you think of is Brandon Stone. Can you do this again? Now, of course, I'm not expecting a complete game, but maybe that start provides a little extra boost. Maybe it provides a little extra confidence, because that was awesome. And if he can go out there and go toe to toe with whoever the heck Kentucky's putting out there on Friday, I think the guys can feel confident in that. And yes, this UNF game was closer than you would have liked. But if we take a step back, you won two out of three last weekend at home, and you just won this game. So you've won your last three out of four games. I mean, that's got to be feeling good in the dugout and in the clubhouse, right? So go behind your guy, Brandon Stone, if he can go and just pitch well, get us six good innings, you know, give me that quality start.
[00:16:41] If we can steal game one at Lexington, that would be huge.
[00:16:45] But my quote of the series is that you wanted to continue to get the top of the order cooking. Nathan hall has just been on fire. So if he can continue that and set up opportunities for Petri to drive in runs, it just goes such a long way.
[00:17:01] And then when you have hall hitting so well at the top, the guys at the bottom of the lineup, you know, you of course want them to be productive, but they don't have to put the world on their back. You know what I mean? Like, have your eight or nine hitter just get a base hit, because hall has been so locked in that he might be able to drive him in successfully. So it's going to be an interesting series here on the road, which previously has given Carolina fits. So maybe, just maybe, though, this last weekend that we saw and how they handled business Friday and Saturday or Thursday and Friday against Ole Miss, maybe that carries over a little bit. Maybe there's a little extra juice, but we'll see. It should be a good weekend. And there's a lot of action around Gamecock Nation between this and the NFL draft. But with that, y'all, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media Twitter or X is Cox Gamecox. Instagram is just the name of the show. Cox Talking Gamecocks. And please like subscribe and review the podcast. I appreciate all y'all. Go Cox.
