Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Gamecocks is brought to you by the Mason Jar, New York City. The Mason Jar is the official gamecock bar for the New York City area. Fans and alumni of USC can come by the Jar for some great barbecue, cold drinks, and of course to watch the gamecocks in any sport, all while surrounded by South Carolina memorabilia. If you want to get a slice of game day in Columbia, all while in the Big Apple, head to The Mason Jar on east 30th street. All right, here we go to episode 201 of Cox talk gamecocks, brought to you by the Mason jar, New York City. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 18 one to 2001. Hope you all had a great weekend out there. Gamecock nation, we got wins, we got that winning feeling. Gamecock nation, basketball, everything like that right now is feeling good. I mean it is nice.
[00:01:43] We needed this type of weekend, right where you look left, you got some wins, you look right, you got to win. Sort of bookmarked the weekend with victories there and it always brings good vibes. And of course, college football, we had the absolute madness and chaos that I think a lot of us were rooting for in the College Football Playoff. I mean, my goodness. Alabama takes down Georgia. FSU gets left out of the playoff as an undefeated conference champion. Georgia drops down to six. It was a wild weekend in college football and for the last year of the four team playoff, it sure is going out with a bang. I mean really, it's going to be great. I mean, I think all two matchups, all four teams are very good in this year's playoff. There's not that one team that you can kind of look at and think, I think they're going to get crushed. I think both games are going to be very competitive. I'm really excited now. It's the worst part of college football where you have to wait until several weeks to pass and then you get these games going again. But I guess next year with the expanded playoff, it'll be less or no wait, which will be really fun. Get the whole month of December more football. That's very exciting here. But in terms of gamecock nation and whatnot here going to do a quick weekend recap from news and notes here. No scores outside of basketball, so just going to focus in on some football news here a couple more portal updates for y'all. Wide receivers Kylic Horton and Xavier Short will be entering the transfer portal. Tonka Hemingway, though he has decided to come back. So last episode I had said that it was expected that he was going to enter the portal. Turns out I guess he had a change of heart and has decided to run it back as his post said at South Carolina. And that's know that's great for just the energy around the program right now. Just anytime you see the guys leaving it stinks right? It's a little demoralizing. As a fan you wonder what it does to guys in the locker room, especially when we're talking about bigger name know Juice, Mitch Jeter, things like that. But for Tonka to come back, he's a versatile player, he's a good player, he plays an important position on this team. So very excited to have him return and The Portal officially opens on Monday so hopefully over the next week or so we really see Carolina backfill. A lot of the openings that this team has right now with quality players and I don't think the Gamecocks are in a position to be shy. I think pretty much across the board you can take someone there's very few position groups if any that I think you could sit back and confidently say right now that room is good. Just from depth, from experience, et cetera. I think both lines of scrimmage need to be addressed. I think wide receiver is a huge area of need. I wouldn't mind help on the defensive back, especially if O'Donnell fortune leaves and then the one that we can debate would be quarterback. I mean you have Lenora Sellers, Luke Doty and then I guess it's just going to be Dante Reno actually coming in. So yeah you definitely do want to bring someone in for the quarterback position as well but is it someone that you're going to bring in to potentially just give QB one to is it someone you bring in for competition? Going to be very interesting to see what Shane Beamer and company decide to do there but hopefully The Portal giveth because The Portal has certainly taken away this go around for and you know Beamer has done a pretty good job in the know. You saw what he did with Spencer obviously with Juice as well. A couple other, you know, Mario Anderson comes to mind. He's able to find talent and hopefully he can attract some strong starter quality talent to this team and we've seen across college football that The Portal can jumpstart programs, can jumpstart teams. I don't know if it necessarily will go that way this year just considering how many people you lose but the point being you can turn things around quickly if you hit it right in The Portal and especially one go around with a couple of key players. So we'll be exciting to see this week. I'm sure we'll be filled with news comings and goings and things like that but let's focus on things that are actually happening here. Games that are actually being played right here, starting with men's basketball, the Fighting Q Zips. They were in action Friday night and they beat George Washington 89 to 67 to improve to Seven and O. The Gamecocks are Seven and O for just the 8th time in school history and on their way to doing so in this game. Hit a single game record, 18 point, excuse me, 18. Three pointers. Just an unbelievable win, an unbelievable start to the season. I think it's so fun to see because we knew that Lamont Paris brought in players this year. You knew it was going to be an improved roster, you knew it was going to be a deeper roster, but we were still know this team has a ways to go and this team still has a ways to go, right. It's far from the end of the season, it's far from talking about postseason at all, but I don't think many people saw Seven and O coming and there were a couple of quality wins for sure along the way here. But as terms of this game goes, the Gamecocks were in control. This one pretty much throughout. Carolina went into the break up ten and never looked back. They played consistent defense throughout as well, and clearly the guys were in the zone shooting. Lights out. Some player highlights for you all here. Michi Johnson, 24 points and eight rebounds. BJ Mac, 20 points, and Miles Studie, eleven points, three assists. I said going into the game you wanted to see Miles get going. He had a tough one earlier in the week, so for him to get eleven points, that's great to see. And that's what I'm talking about here with this team. Yes, your starters are going to make the team go. You got Michi BJ, Miles Talon, those are your veterans that you're relying on. But it's not a situation where if one of those guys doesn't have a good night, then the whole team falters, right? Jacoby Wright. He contributed. You have Zachary Davis. You have Stephen Clark. There are guys on this team other than sort of your big three or four who can contribute and who have contributed to clutch time, buckets and wins. Now up next for the guys, it's a rivalry matchup taking on Clemson. This is in the upstate. This game is Wednesday night. This game has a little extra juice. The Tigers are also undefeated this year at seven and O, so should be a competitive one, should be a lot on the line, energy should be there, intensity should be there. Looking forward to this one a lot. My crow to the game here, control the glass.
[00:09:37] These teams are both feeling good going into this game. Carolina is going to want to slow the game down, right? They're going to want to make Clemson fight for each possession, but the Gamecocks have to control the glass and win the rebound battle and limit any extra possessions for the Tigers.
[00:09:59] This is a real test here. There's been a couple of good teams that Carolina has faced. Virginia Tech, Grand Canyon is solid, but Clemson right now probably the best team that this squad has faced up to this point in the year. And it's on the road, a true road game for Lamont Paris and company. I know we traveled out to Arizona for that know we went to Charlote for the Virginia Tech game. But this is a true road game. Going to be a hostile environment. A lot on the line, especially last year with the Game and how that ending was against Clemson. You know that they're going to want to handle business and come out firing against South Carolina here. So going to be fun to watch. And if this team can go on the road in a hostile environment and handle business, really my opinion, the sky is the limit for this team. But what I want to see is I want to see good effort. You want to see a game that is hard fought. You want good fundamentals. You don't want to be in foul trouble early. And yeah, I mean, this team loves to hit the threes. And if you get that going, anything is possible. But again, I think this team can beat their opponents in multiple ways, right? Look for BJ. Mack to contribute. I think Stephen Clark could have a nice game down low. Talon Cooper should be distributing the ball well, maybe bring up to 8910 points himself. Going to be a good one. F the Tigers. Let's go. Cox now looking over to women's basketball here Sunday afternoon, the Ladies beat Duke 77 to 61 and this actually completed the North Carolina sweep after they beat UNC last Thursday. So Tobacco Road, whatever it all is, right, you handled it. You swept the Duke UNC rivalry. That's got to feel great. Best in the Carolinas. As if that was ever a, you know, credit to Duke in this game.
[00:11:59] They showed up ready to play and hung with Carolina early. Actually were leading after the first quarter and they made a push after halftime as well. But South Carolina is too deep and too good and the Ladies clamped down defensively, allowing only nine points in both the second and fourth quarter. So just a fantastic effort from Don Staley and company. And then in the fourth quarter, things were really cooking for the gamecocks and they put everything away was a good game and great way to cap off the weekend for us gamecock fans here. And again, this start to the women's team is also incredibly know. I was thinking there could be some growing pains a little earlier in the year. UNC, that game was close. The ladies had to dig deep and fight hard at the end to get that win. But that's character building games. And this team over the years has played good teams out of conference early in the year and it really has paid dividends, especially when you look at a team like this year's where you are figuring out who you are and you're figuring out your rotations and different role players and things like that. But it was a very impressive weekend for the Gamecocks all the way around. Player highlights from this game here. Camilla Cardozo, 15 points and 14 rebounds. Another double double. Chloe Kits had herself a nice game, 14 points and nine rebounds. Raven Johnson with eleven points and four assists. Just a really good game from the ladies all around. The women's next game is also Wednesday night. Wednesday night is a ball night for the gamecocks here as they take on Morgan State at home. Morgan State is three and five on the year. My quote of the game here is get deep into the bench.
[00:14:00] I really feel like this is a game where South Carolina should handle this with relative ease. So it would be a great opportunity to continue to get the younger players lots of playing time, continue to empty the bench, build out that depth, get them some playing time again. I think that will only benefit the team as the year goes on, especially when you get into SEC play here. But with that, y'all, that wraps up this episode. Short one today, but we'll get you in and out early. But please follow me on social media. Twitter is cox gamecocks. 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.
