Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, Lamont Paris is on the hot seat. Women's basketball looks to keep up the momentum and updates from the baseball team. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:54] Okay.
[00:00:56] Welcome to episode three, 373 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001 and hope y' all are bundled up again.
[00:01:12] Gamecocks. I feel like I'm turning into a weather podcast. Just the amount of time I've been thinking and talking about the weather here in the southeast, of all places, is just bonkers to me. Like, it's so cold. Is ass cold. We had ice last. We had an ice storm last weekend where everyone thought, like, it was the apocalypse, which we really did dodge a bullet there. And now they're trying to say this weekend we're gonna get snow. Multiple inches of snow, Which I'll take snow over ice any day, but had to go back to the store and fight off people again.
[00:01:48] I'm stocked up again. I just want to go out and chill. I mean, we'll see how it ends up here in the Carolinas with the amount of snow, but it really seems like it's gonna happen, which is just crazy. I'm over it. I'm over it. Winter weather is nice when it's Christmas time, right? And after that, it just is obnoxious. And that's where I'm at with this thing. But do appreciate y' all tuning in today if you hear some barking and things of like that. That's my neighbor's dog, Darla, who is nice when she's on the outside, but I guess she's acting up right now. So I do apologize if you have here a little dog in the background, but that's just Darla trying to get her her piece in there. Hopefully she settles down soon, but it's been an interesting week across Gamecock athletics. I'm gonna dive into a lot of it here, but first off, looking at a weekly recap. Only one score from outside of the major sports to cover here, and we're talking equestrian. We are back in action as the Lady Gamecock Riders. The Gamecock Horses, they beat Baylor 10 to 7 there, so that's a good start for the ladies there.
[00:03:00] And then I have two updates from the baseball team. Yeah, I bet y' all haven't been thinking baseball sitting here in the cold weather, but believe it or not, that season is only a couple of weeks away, and that is. That sounds very far fetched. And I know there's been a lot less fanfare and a lot less people looking forward to this baseball season than maybe years past. But nonetheless, two pieces of info here for y'. All. Tough ones.
[00:03:28] Starting pitcher Jake McCoy is done for the year. He will have to have Tommy John surgery. Absolutely hate that for Jake. He had a pretty good year last year, was seemingly going to be a big piece for that group this year. And good, good player, good pitcher. But unfortunately is done for the year. Absolutely hate that for him. And it's tough for the team, right. When you have a guy who was very productive for you and looking to continue his development this year, unfortunately, is done for the year. And then Bo Hollins, first baseman Bo Hollins, good young player. He is also hurt by he was dealing with an injury over the summer, they said. And then Paul Manieri said he fell and hurt his shoulder. Timeline is still to be determined. It doesn't seem like he's done for the year, but if you're reading between the lines, it does seem like it's going to be at least medium term, which is tough. He was very productive, a good young player. Another person who you looked at as, hey, could be someone living in the middle of the lineup for you that if he takes another step forward, especially offensively, would be a big piece. So two tough pieces of news for the baseball team on the injury front and just crossing our fingers and hoping for the best the rest of the way to minimize the damage and hoping for speedy recoveries for both those guys. But yeah, pretty crazy to think that baseball season is around the corner, which, hey, maybe, maybe the squad surprises some people, right? And that would be very pleasant. We all love our baseball program. Such a rich history.
[00:05:10] It just is tough to not be jazzed about the state of the program there, but. Which is a perfect segue to talk about our men's basketball team. I mean, my goodness, like, if y' all want to just skip ahead to the end of the episode, I don't blame you because I'm about to go in on our men's basketball team Wednesday night. They had the white out. There was a lot of fanfare. The guys were hosting Florida and this thing, this thing was over before you could say the word basketball. I mean, you lose the game 95 to 48 in front of the home crowd. I'm going to say that again. That was, that's not a typo. That's not me misspeaking your South Carolina, our South Carolina men's basketball program, SEC level basketball program, lost at home, 95 to 48 was. They were down 48 to 20 at the half. I believe it was in the second half of the. That the guys had their second made three pointer.
[00:06:24] It is a sad, sad, sad state of affairs for that program right now.
[00:06:32] In his postgame presser, Lamont Paris said there's games where you have it and you're competitive. There's some games where you aren't competitive, and then there's that.
[00:06:43] And then he went on to say that he got the sense from some guys on the team that they just knew they weren't going to win this game early on in this one.
[00:06:56] And it permeated from there. And he, he said that's kind of like what happened in the Arkansas game as well. So you know what he's saying, that the team quit, that the team quit in this game, that they knew they were not going to win, that it wasn't going to be competitive. They could tell it early on. They just, it just wasn't their night.
[00:07:17] And it was a snowball effect.
[00:07:20] Okay, well, I don't think they quit the sport of basketball. I don't think they quit the University of South Carolina. You know who I do think they quit on? Lamont Paris.
[00:07:32] And I think we've, we've seen enough.
[00:07:35] This is a game, this is a straw that breaks the camel's back type game.
[00:07:41] I think Lamont Paris is a good person.
[00:07:45] I was initially excited and optimistic about the approach he was going to bring to South Carolina.
[00:07:54] I looked at his resume and thought, this has all the makings of. You found a guy on the come up and he's going to take our program to the next level with his apprenticeship and, you know, mentorship with Bo Ryan. He led Chattanooga to pretty successful tenure there. Went to the tournament.
[00:08:15] It's over.
[00:08:16] I mean, it's, it's never been more over.
[00:08:20] I mean, there's no coming back from this.
[00:08:22] There really isn't.
[00:08:24] Like I've said it before, I've said it again. We're now in, it's year four, right, of the Paris era. And you know, you have two full seasons where the team was bad.
[00:08:36] Now you have a half season more or less where the team is bad. So you have two and a half years, about to be three where the team is bad, bad, bad, bad. Like not going to the NIT.
[00:08:49] Not like you were competitive in the SEC, you know, like, like not 500, like bad.
[00:08:55] And then you had one year where you caught lightning in the bottle and you had a bunch of rental Players, one year, guys who led your team to a tournament run, which was fantastic. Right?
[00:09:09] That tournament run also was a one and done.
[00:09:13] So I think the writing is on the wall and I'm making my stance official. I've danced around it.
[00:09:21] I didn't want to have to say it, but I'm at the point now, Lamont Paris needs to be relieved of his duties.
[00:09:26] Like, he cannot be the head coach of this team. If we want this program to be taken seriously, I don't know when that's going to happen, but I don't think you can come back from this. Right? Multiple blowout losses in the year, you're sitting at 2 and 6 in the SEC, right? Like, and when you're talking about going against the better half of the sec, you're not even competitive, right? The recruiting, again, outside of.
[00:09:57] I mean, really outside of Mack and Cooper, the recruiting has been bad.
[00:10:04] You know, Mechi Johnson, I love me Johnson, he's a good player.
[00:10:08] He's being asked to do entirely too much. When he was able to compliment other experienced players, like in year two under Paris, that's where he thrived, right? Like, he's a good get.
[00:10:20] Cmb, fantastic, right? He was right in your backyard, though. You were able to, you know, hold on to him. Right? You didn't work that recruitment for as long as you did, you know, and it's just. It's just tough.
[00:10:34] It's just sad to see.
[00:10:37] And there is no excuse why we can't be a pretty good basketball program. Right?
[00:10:45] I'm not sitting here saying we need to look like Duke or unc, right? Or, you know, I'm not sitting here with the expectations of a Kentucky who have their own issues, right?
[00:10:59] But we're at. We're in the basement.
[00:11:02] We were in the basement all of last year. We're in the basement now this year. We were in the basement, you know, a couple years ago.
[00:11:09] There's no reason why we can't be competitive. Basketball is a different beast, right?
[00:11:15] And in the modern era of college athletics, with the transfer portal, it's all different, right? A lot of the old adages are not applicable.
[00:11:23] But, you know, football has to have an. It's an uphill battle when you talk about high school recruiting, because you're going against the likes of Georgia, Clemson, North Carolina State, unc, you know, these other programs who are right in your backyard, right? You share the recruiting territory with them.
[00:11:45] Basketball, like, yes, we. We recruit against some of these programs here, but basketball players, when you look at it collegiately, like they it's not as big of an issue to recruit outside of like a day trip kind of driving range that a lot of football coaches like to focus on. You know, you can recruit guys from Ohio like Michi, right.
[00:12:14] And it's. And you can succeed. Of course you want to be able to recruit the best in your state. And South Carolina has pretty good basketball players.
[00:12:22] And then even in close by, North Carolina's talent rich. Georgia has some talent rich. Right.
[00:12:28] The point is we haven't seen any of that really from Lamont Paris, like a couple of blips on the radar. He is not recruiting. It's not a situation where this is a talented team that's underperforming.
[00:12:43] This is not a situation where it's the opposite where he's getting the most out of a bunch of lower level guys.
[00:12:51] He's not getting the most out of mid tier guys. Right. Like he wasn't able to recruit at a high level.
[00:12:58] I don't know what this roster construction is. How is there not a true point guard on this team?
[00:13:05] Like what you thought Eli Ellis, a true freshman was going to be that guy. Like he can grow into it. Sure.
[00:13:14] That's gonna take some time. You needed an impact day one floor general like Talon Cooper was. And you don't have that.
[00:13:24] The post play, you don't have.
[00:13:29] It's just bonkers to me to be embarrassed by over 40 points, almost 50 points.
[00:13:40] It's just embarrassing, you know, and again, this, this wasn't like a. Oh my God, this, this one game got away from you, you know, but you, you've been in the mix and in the rest of them, this was just a really, really weird offline. No, we've gotten cooked in multiple games and the game and then the other games that we've lost that have been kind of close, usually we were down double figures most of the way. And it was like trying to backdoor this thing.
[00:14:13] And your first SEC win, I mean, both of them for that matter are teams that are right at your level.
[00:14:22] So you're not playing up to your competition.
[00:14:26] And you're trying to tell me that during the game you got the sense that the team knew it was over. That's crazy.
[00:14:34] That means you're not motivating the guys, you know, and it's not even like they had a spirited second half score. 28 points in the second half.
[00:14:45] I mean, my goodness, you know, like that's coaching, you know, you.
[00:14:52] And you know, Donati did not hire Lamont Paris.
[00:14:57] I think he in his first year was in observation mode, right?
[00:15:03] And a lot of folks out there were saying, well, we don't have the resources allocated towards men's basketball like some other teams. Yada, yada, yada, like, okay, fair.
[00:15:14] And this year, supposedly, there was more.
[00:15:17] I don't care if it's not as much as Auburn gives their program. I don't care if it's not as much as Tennessee gives their program. Like, you still can find a way to be competitive.
[00:15:28] Good coaches can find a way to hang in there and at least be a tough out.
[00:15:32] We're not even that.
[00:15:34] So I think Donati said, hey, we gave you some more cash.
[00:15:38] You sure didn't do a whole lot, a whole lot of great with it. You know, I don't understand what you're doing. Roster wise, I have a good enough sample size where I'm gonna go ahead and we're gonna make a move, and hopefully that's what we see. You know, it's.
[00:15:53] You don't like to see the person aspect of it lose their job, but that's the business that these guys are in. And our job as fans are to demand and expect better.
[00:16:07] And again, I'm not sitting here saying I want a national championship in basketball.
[00:16:13] You know, I'm not. I just want. I want to go to the tournament, you know, more than once every 10 years, right? Once every, you know, five, you know, like. You know what I'm saying? Like, I just want to be in the mix. Like, even if it was a situation where. All right, year two, Le Mans, Paris, we went to the tournament. That was fun.
[00:16:34] The year after that, all the guys left. You weren't able to, you know, you took some swings and misses and recruiting, like, okay. And then for flash forward to this year, you're hanging in there like, yeah, you could be an NIT team. I got. I'd even take that.
[00:16:47] With the semblance of, like, building towards something, it's just. And it's just not. So, yeah, official stances. Lamont has to go. It stinks. I really wanted it to work. I was a prisoner of hope. But this. This is just not it.
[00:17:02] It's just not. And so we'll see how it goes. I mean, you know, we're sitting here, it's about to be February.
[00:17:10] I don't know if it makes a ton of sense to move on now, but I certainly think you'd want to get a jump on the search.
[00:17:20] So I would expect probably at some point mid February, maybe late February, just to make sure you can really get a jump on the search to have someone come in and hit the ground running with the portal and everything like that. But my goodness, just a bad, bad display of basketball there.
[00:17:44] Oh yai yai. But all right.
[00:17:46] Moving on to what has been better displays of basketball. The women's team coming off a massive win. Y' all will remember last weekend against Vandy, they are taking on Auburn as I am. Actually, they're. They haven't even tipped off yet. They're tipping off at 9pm Eastern.
[00:18:03] I need my beauty rest. My own puppy keeps me up and at them, so I am usually pretty gassed by the end of the day. So I am recording before they have tipped off. But wishing them nothing but the best. The ladies will then take on, I believe it is, yes, Texas A and M on Monday in College Station. So interesting sort of schedule there for the ladies.
[00:18:24] Hopefully they can continue the momentum that we saw against Vandy, where you saw a big time distribution of wealth, if you will, where you had a lot of people scoring the basketball, people divvying up the looks and executing on that and playing really good defense late in the game. So that's the focus right now, right? That's if you're looking for good vibes, you're looking at Gamecock women's sports, you're looking at Gamecock women's basketball and you're looking forward to softball. That's where our good vibes are coming from. An equestrian too.
[00:18:56] That's where our good vibes are coming from right now. And I absolutely love it. Absolutely love it. Excited for all that to continue rolling and we'll track what goes on with the rest of the sports the rest of the way. 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.
