Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, Colin Murray Boyles has a career day. Women's basketball wins despite being a player down, and a football coach is moving on. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:55] Okay.
[00:00:56] Welcome to episode 217 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 18 one to 2001 and hope you all had a great weekend out there. Gamecocks. Hope you all enjoyed the Super bowl, and I just hope you had everything. Buffalo chicken. I hope that you got your buffalo fix in whichever way that you want. You want Buffalo chicken? Poppers? You want wings? You want dip? Whatever it is, I hope you got it. Maybe some dessert, too. Maybe pigs and blankets. Getting hungry all over again. Thinking about it. But, yeah. Fun weekend. Sad to see football go. It's always this paradox of get excited for Super Bowl Sunday and hanging around watching the game, the commercials, all that jazz. And then the reality is that now there's no football for six months, so sort of a winsome lose some there. But aside from the Super bowl, it really was a Super Gamecock weekend yet again. And so much fun. Going to recap everything with y'all here. Gonna go through the men's and women's basketball games as they had big, exciting matchups, big wins. Spoiler alert. But, yeah, Super Gamecock weekend. Absolutely love it here. But first, let's look at a weekend recap here. Bit of news coming from the football team. This happened a couple days ago, but to bring y'all up to speed, it was announced that Justin Steppe, the wide receivers coach, actually recently tight end coach, I should say, for South Carolina, is leaving to be the wide receivers coach at Illinois. And this was an interesting one. I don't think it was super surprising because he was moved over to be tight ends coach recently. Some people viewed that as a demotion of sorts. He had been a wide receiver coach his whole career. But it feels weird, right? Because step was one of the first coaches that Shane Beamer brought on when he was hired at South Carolina. I think, at least from an outsider's point of view, he really meshed well with the culture, and he was a team first guy. He's a family man. He seemed to be a really good guy that loved being back in the state of South Carolina, loved the University of South Carolina, took pride in his job. And so it's sad to see him go from that point of view.
[00:03:34] At the same time, if we really do look at the nuts and bolts of everything on the recruiting trail, there were some misses, and there were some missteps and things like that. And then when we look at the play on the field, there are good examples of development. Guy like Josh Van, Juice Wells, Xavier Leguette especially. So you have these couple of examples. But I think just overall, it did maybe feel like the wide receiver room was not developing at the rate that you would want it to. And I think when Shane Bremer brought in coach Coley to coach the wide receivers, that was what he was intending to do, was to step up the level of play across the board in that group. And who knows, right? Who knows why Justin is leaving, but probably ruffled a little bit of feathers being moved to the side. He was a wide receiver, he's only coached wide receivers. Probably didn't take too kindly to that. But yeah, he's off to the big ten, off to Illinois. Wish him nothing but the best.
[00:04:45] I'm sure he'll move on to bigger and better things, even from Illinois. But yeah, Justin step is no longer with the program, leaving a coach open. So it'll be interesting to see how Shane Beamer fills that role kind of late in the game, but that will be interesting to track as well, who ultimately he brings in to coach tight ends. Now, looking at some scores here Friday we had equestrian in action. That's right, we're talking equestrian. Unfortunately, they lost to TCU 13 to six. The softball team, they got their season underway this weekend with a bang, beating UNCG eight to four. And then also Jacksonville State beat them, the other Gamecocks, if you remember, four to three. And then Saturday we had equestrian back in action, also, unfortunately, taking the loss to Texas A and M eleven to seven. Softball still in action. They beat Jacksonville State again four to two, and then whooped UVA six to one. Sunday, men's tennis, unfortunately caught an l to Ohio State six to one. That's all right, guys. Screw Ohio State. Screw the Buckeyes. And then softball beat UVA again seven to one. So sort of a mixed bag from the sports here, the spring sports this weekend, but softball off to a heck of a start. And if you remember, they ended the year really hot, too. So it's nice to see that momentum carryover. They did some nice renovations over to their stadium as well, so really elevating the game for softball as well. And that'll be really interesting to see when we have Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC. They have, especially Oklahoma, a very storied softball program. So the landscape in the SEC is about to get competitive pretty much everywhere you look.
[00:06:44] But now let's take a deep dive into men's basketball here. The guys were back in action at home Saturday afternoon looking for their 7th consecutive win and it didn't come easy at first, but the guys ended up pulling away to beat Vanderbilt 75 to 60. This win also marks the 21st win of the year, just one season removed from losing 21 games. So as if we didn't know already and if we didn't need more stats and more figures and things like that, that right there to me was like, wow, you have 21 wins and counting, still have a couple of weeks left in the regular season. And just, it really encapsulates the turnaround that Lamont Paris has done at South Carolina.
[00:07:43] From losing 21 games just a season ago to now winning 21 and counting. Really, really remarkable. But from this game, the Vandy game here, there's really two storylines that came out of the game. The first is how the guys came out of the halftime because in the first half the guys just simply did not look like themselves.
[00:08:09] I mean, they were not as crisp offensively as we've seen, missing some open shots and things like that defensively, they also gave up some easy buckets and it just looked like they didn't start the game locked in, just didn't. And it showed because Vandy ended the half in front by four points and Vandy is struggling this year. Now, they do play hard. They have been in a lot of games. So you were hoping that it wasn't a deal where maybe the guys were overlooking Vanderbilt and at least from the first opening minutes and so it almost looked like that. And I think maybe just with how the team started against Ole Miss and then that excitement and all that, you kind of thought, well, they're going to start hot again here and we're going to smoke Vandy. That was not the case. Vandy came ready to play tough road game and unfortunately the guys started off slow. But when the second half rolled around, Lamont got the guys together and everything started to come much easier and the guys dominated in that second half. And it was funny know, seemingly in the blink of an eye you look up and all of a sudden it's a multiple possession lead for South Carolina. And really the game was just never close from there. So it was a fantastic response from this team and it wasn't the first time that they were down at the half and to come out and be as dominant as they were in that second half again is just a huge testament and credit to Lamont Paris. But everything that's going on now, I am watching with the lens of, could this help us in a postseason situation? You know what I mean? Whether that is the SEC tournament, the NCA tournament. Right. Like, not everything is going to come easy. Teams are going to be able to game plan around you. Vanderbilt was very patient on offense, especially in that first half, going deep into the shot clock and then finding an open shot. South Carolina has given teams fits defensively, especially if they like to go a little quicker and they like to score earlier in the shot clock because South Carolina doesn't give up the looks easily. So that throws teams off their game plan. Vanderbilt came in ready to be patient, and so Carolina and Lamont Paris had to respond and adjust to that, and they did.
[00:10:45] So when you get tested like that, I like to think that that's something where the coaches can sort of put away. You can study it and then also, of course, the players can put that away and study it. And if you're in a situation, let's just say in March where it's, hey, we're down possession or two here at the half, maybe didn't play our best basketball, we have to turn it on in the second half. You remember when that happened against Vanderbilt? You remember how we turned it on?
[00:11:20] You can sort know, take that out of the memory bank and then use it.
[00:11:25] But the second storyline from this game, probably the bigger one, honestly, is the career day, the absolute monster day for Colin Murray Boyles. I mean, the kid was playing out of his mind on both ends of the floor and put on a magical performance. Career high day, going for 31 points.
[00:11:52] That's nearly half of the entire team's total. Carolina scored 75 in the game. He scored 31. I'm no math expert.
[00:12:03] I took the minimum math classes at USC, but I'm pretty close that I can say that's like, what, 40 something percent? It's just remarkable.
[00:12:13] And this also comes after the game against Ole Miss, which I dubbed the CMB game. But no, this is the CMB game. I mean, he is truly special. He is a special talent and he is coming into his own right before our very eyes.
[00:12:38] I mean, he has the natural ability and motor, but there also has to be tons of credit given to Lamont Paris for developing him and then also really bringing him along the right way after he was out with mono. I mean, that just starts to get thrown away in games now. Like, oh, he missed a couple weeks with like, that was huge. And I know that that was a couple of months ago, but he ended up missing some of the preseason activities because of it. He missed the first couple of games from it and then even when he was back, he could only play limited minutes. So to be able to work with him and then develop him along the way is just remarkable.
[00:13:24] And I mean, there really just can't be enough good things said about him in this game.
[00:13:32] His chase down block will have LeBron James jealous. His dunks brought colonial life to its feet. His ability to sort know, lean in and get those layups, the bank shots, spin move. Like he was not just the spark for the team this game, right? He was the engine that made the team go this game against Ole Miss, you can say he really was that spark. He was the guy that got that block or you could sort of lean on in that game. He was all reliable. He took over this game, especially in that second half. And again, he is just such a special talent and it is amazing to watch. I mean, it really is. And he's a true freshman. It's just very remarkable to see Lamont Paris, he's a hell of a coach. He just is. And the way he has these guys playing right now and their response to the adversity in the first half and finding different ways to win. Right? You won ugly against Ole Miss. You played through your freshman forward this game. You've had other games where you're shooting the lights out of the place, right? The defense is just remarkable what this team is doing right now.
[00:14:58] Some player highlights from this game here. CMB, 31 points. He went 14 of 17 for shooting too, so just incredibly efficient. And BJ Mac, he went for 18 points. So this was really the game of the bigs. And BJ hit five three pointers. So that was something that has eluded him the last couple of games. Really nice to see him hit multiple. When he is able to do that. It just opens things up so much more for the team. And it really was the story of these two guys who really just had a fantastic game. Now, up next for the Gamecocks is really the biggest regular season matchup in years for South Carolina men's basketball as the guys hit the road and head to Auburn. Now, Auburn was basically the top dog in the SEC, like all year, but now they find themselves sitting a game behind our very own South Carolina gamecocks for first place in the league.
[00:16:01] So we have to wait till Monday afternoon to see where both teams are ranked. But it stands to reason that the Gamecocks will improve from 15 after winning both games since then. Now, Auburn was ranked twelve, but they will probably slide a little bit. They had a tough loss this past weekend, but this very well still might end up being a top 15 matchup. Maybe Auburn is 14 and maybe South Carolina is twelve or something like that, right? So highly anticipated. There will be eyes on this nationwide and Auburn right now is sitting at 19 and five overall, eight and three in the SEC. They are coming off a very bad loss to Florida, but this is just a massive game because all of a sudden the Gamecocks have a very legit shot at the SEC regular season and then even screw it like overall SEC title. And this game is just a huge piece in that.
[00:17:06] And again, as we move closer to the postseason, all of these games become even more important as a way to improve and get better.
[00:17:17] Auburn can score in bunches and they score a lot. They average 82 points per game while allowing 67 points per game. So micro to the game here is be ready for Johnny Broom. The junior forward is Auburn's leading scorer and rebounder. So this task is going to fall on CMB BJ Mack, Josh Gray too. Need to win the rebounding battle, defend without getting into foul trouble, hold up our own in the post and then hopefully we can get some more production from our guards. Talon Michi Studi kind of quiet against Vanderbilt, so need some of those guys to step up as well. But this game means a lot and it means even more now that the Gamecocks have the eyes of college basketball on them. I mean, let's go and hopefully this year is sort of a sign of things to come. Right? Where you had some bigger games earlier in the year. They were upset wins. Now you're looking at a big time ranked matchup with implications for an SEC title at stake. Like hopefully this is not the last time we talk about this in the Lamont Paris era, you know what I mean? So very exciting times there. And then looking over to women's basketball, the ladies again, they were without Camilla Cardozo these last two games and they responded beautifully. They just did the job fell to Ashlyn Watkins, Sonya Fagan, Chloe Kitts to replace Cardozo and they seized the opportunity. But then also the guard play this week was excellent, which allowed those post players to have a little bit more of a room for error, if you will. But I mean, truly, if there were any remaining questions about this team, they were answered as clearly the depth is there and this team can adapt to who was available.
[00:19:23] Now on Thursday, the ladies cruised by Mizzou 83 to 45 like it was nothing. On Sunday, the ladies had another highly anticipated matchup with Yukon which was a fantastic appetizer for the Super bowl, by the way. And it was a great game for Gamecock fans. I mean, maybe not the national audience that was watching, as the game was never really in question with Gamecocks winning 83 to 65. I was so pissed. They just missed on giving Yukon their 1st 20 point loss since 2007. And I know it's been a couple of years since Yukon has been that top team in college women's basketball. It's been us. You had the LSU Baylor in there as well, but there is still just something that feels so good about beating Yukon. You know what I mean? Tahina pao Powell came out of the gates on fire in the first half and that really allowed the team and especially the post players to breathe a little easier. And at a halftime, the Gamecocks really rolled and opened things up full. Wiley was making plays, Tessa Johnson had a couple of big shots, Ashlyn Watkins really had a nice day. And all told, the ladies stayed perfect in style. Some player highlights from this game. Pow pow. Went for 21, Ashlyn Watkins 15 points, nine rebounds and Chloe Kitts 14 points.
[00:20:52] Up next for Carolina is a game Thursday night against Tennessee. The Lady balls are 14 and eight overall, seven and three in conference. My crow to the game here is you got to welcome back Cardozo. I know they did fine without her, but let's welcome her back. Get her a big game will be fun to see, 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 gamecocks. And please like subscribe and review the podcast. I appreciate all y'all go Cox.
