Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode 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. Gamecock Nation, busy weekend, lot of games, lot of action. Was a busy last week for your boy. Absolutely exhausting. Traveling, working, doing a whole bunch of stuff and all that jazz. That's why I missed you all on last Friday. Good to be back. Good to be back in the studio, aka just my desk, trying to make it sound fancy, but great to be talking with y'all once again. And, of course, catching up on everything that has happened the last few days in Gamecock country. And I picked a hell of a week. I picked a hell of a week to have to travel for work and all that jazz because there was so many good things going on and so little time for your boy to talk about it. And so this is going to be a little bit of a weekend recap, but I'm going to touch on what happened for really the last, like five, six days. So bear with me. But it's all good stuff, right? Like, if it wasn't a successful last week, I probably wouldn't be talking about it was sweeping under the rug. But that's not the case. So we're going to keep the good times going here. But let's start off with a weekend recap. We had a lot of other sports really getting underway here, so this is going to be fun to recap their success and whatnot here. So starting on Friday, swimming and diving took on Georgia Tech. The women won 161 to 131, and unfortunately, the men lost 187 to 113. Women's tennis on Friday defeated Arizona four to one. Way to go, ladies. And on Saturday, women's tennis unfortunately lost to Georgia. That's all right. Screw the Bulldogs and men's tennis. They beat Clemson four to two. That's a convincing win in the Palmetto series. Anytime you can beat Clemson in any sport that needs to be especially celebrated, I think Capstone was lit up for them. And screw Clemson. Screw tigers. Men's tennis is legit. I think they're number two right now. We have a very good men's tennis program, something to follow along and everything like that. And not to be outdone, the women's tennis, they beat LSU four to one on Sunday as well. So a winning weekend from around the spring. Sports, a lot to be happy about and to celebrate. And then a bit of football news here. Shane Beamer, he has hired Pete Lembo's person. I don't know he hired someone to fill the void left by Pete Lembo. That word's gonna come back to me in like an hour, and it's gonna drive me crazy. Not predecessor. What's the one after predecessor? Processor. That's not right. I did graduate. I promise y'all. But nonetheless, here, Shane Beamer deciding to add special teams. Coach Joe D. Camillis has a long and successful resume of coaching special teams almost exclusively at the NFL level. Lot of NFL experience there. But last year he was actually at Texas, so kind of a funny coaching arc, if you will. Sort of similar to Davao Loggins, someone who spent their almost entirety of their coaching career at the professional level, goes to the college ranks, spends a year or two learning the ropes there, and then gets a big job for their own self. Deacon Millis should bring high energy to the team and a ton of knowledge about special teams. And I mean, really, when you think about it, like, Shane Beamer is not just going to hire anybody for that department. That's something that he has coached personally, obviously, his namesake, beamer Ball. There's a good history of having good special teams play on a Beamer run team. So you have to check a lot of boxes, right? Experience culturally, work ethic, all that jazz. So Beamer ball is still here. Unfortunately, limbo ball is up in the Mac. So I guess we have Decamillus ball. DeCamillis Ball is loading in Columbia. He was someone that, when you were reading articles, his name was being floated around as someone that could be a good fit for Columbia. So should be a win win and allow Shane Beamer to continue to focus on sort of those CEO responsibilities, if you will. Doesn't have to get too into the weeds as far as coaching the special teams group with bringing in camillas there, but on to basketball. And like I was just saying, I mean, what a last few days it has been for Gamecock basketball. I mean, we are having a moment right now in Columbia where men's basketball and women's basketball are absolutely kicking ass, kicking ass and taking names, and college basketball nationwide is looking at Columbia and what Lamont Paris and Don Staley are doing and really making noise nationwide here. Now, that's no surprise. On the women's side of things, dawn has had that thing rolling. She has built a powerhouse. But to see what she has done this season with a retooled roster and then what she did Thursday night is remarkable. And then on the men's side of things, Lamont Paris finally is sort of getting that know last year he had a decimated roster. We know that he was sort of handicapped coaching with one hand behind his back last year. This year, the disrespect continued. Picked last to finish in the SEC, finished last in the SEC, sitting right now third in the league. And people are taking notice. I don't know if it's going to show up in a top 25 ranking. And that's just that validation on the men's side because we've had good wins. Virginia Tech, grand Canyon, Kentucky, there have been these good wins, but it's not all about the top 25 ranking in basketball. Right? Where are you at the end of the year? Right. Where are you sitting in about a month? Because then you're talking about the postseason and that's the name of the game in men's basketball here. But nonetheless, it has been such a cool ride to see the energy and the anticipation around all of these. Know, we love our women's basketball. We love Don Staley, and we love what she has built there, the fams, attendance records, all of that. But now to have that on the men's side as well. And so basically, it's like almost every other night it feels like Gamecock Nation is just locked in for basketball. It is so fun. And now you had your football season, which had its moments up and down, but you still are locked in for that. It's not just this sort of bridge to baseball. It's a legitimate, hey, we got two teams that can do something special here, and I'm all for it. So again, because of my travels, I wasn't fully able to break down their games from the last week. So we're going to do that really quickly. Let's start here with men's basketball, with the guys upsetting Kentucky for a huge, casual, too easy top ten victory and a Lamont Paris signature win. Yeah, just funny side story here. Like I said, I've been traveling for business, if you haven't heard it the ten times I've talked about it, but I was at a business dinner Tuesday night. It was a late dinner, and I'm checking my phone every chance that I can for the score updates and I'm like, holy crap, like, what is going on in Columbia right now? My buddies are texting me eye emojis. Eye emojis. And it's just, for someone who lives and breathes Carolina sports, this was like a nightmare. This was like purgatory just sitting there. So we're at this nice dinner, and from my seat, I can literally see across the street there is a sports bar and all I'm thinking about is, let's push this dinner along, let's get that check, and then you hustle over there. And that's exactly what I did when that check was signed. I shook everybody's hand, hustled across the street to a sports bar, caught the last two, maybe three minutes of it and saw the courtstorm chills. It's just unbelievable. All of the videos and pictures coming from that game is just amazing. And to do it in that convincing fashion and to have that crowd with the blackout, with the courts storm to live up to the billing. Right. You're coming into that game with some momentum, with the good record, with the excitement, the q zips, right. This allure, the blackout game, it would have been easy for team to fall flat and it would have been this thing where you threw up your hands and that's, that's, that's Carolina sports for you. But no, Lamont Paris got this team to deliver and to really throw our program himself, our players, our fans onto the national stage, that is a no joke win. That was a serious home court advantage, and it was a serious, serious kudos to everyone who was involved. Lamont Parish especially. Like, to see the guys step up.
[00:11:08] I'm going to talk about this in a minute here about the Mizzou game, but you're seeing guys step up where Miles studie went down. And it wasn't this season's over moment, but it was like, we might take a backslide here for a minute. We're down a pretty important piece. But to see a guy like Zachary Davis step up into the starting lineup and blossom the way that he has and his versatility really being put on display is something else. And to have a guy like Colin Murray Boyle step, you know, he is a surgeon out there. He knows where to be. He's almost like a coach out there telling guys what to do, where they need to be next. Know I pass you the ball, you turned it over. Here's how you got to prevent that next time. It's incredibly impressive to see and the steady hand of Lamont Paris and bringing his brand of basketball to this team. I think it shows why he was regarded as the way he was in this coaching search. Right. We can go back and talk about how maybe it wasn't the name that a lot of people wanted, but he was on the radar for this administration for a reason. And him bringing Chattanooga to the heights that he did in a short amount of time is also not a coincidence. So we're lucky to have him. Lamont is cooking. I love the Q zips. Get your Q zips out. But however, the guys did have a more recent game this past Saturday against Missou. And at home it was a question of can they fight off sort of that hangover of beating that top team? Right? Are you going to linger on that against a team in Missouri that's talented and hungry for that conference win? And while there were moments where the hangover creeped in, the guys had their gatorade, they had their water in Advil and they beat Mizzou 72 to 64. The three point shot was there all game for Carolina. And BJ Mac, especially in the first half, was showing off his versatility, hitting multiple three pointers and playing well down low. Second half is where things got a little dicey. Mizzou briefly held a lead. There were a couple of times it was tied. But eventually South Carolina held off the Tigers for a sweep. That's a sweep, a conference opponent sweep against Mizzou this year. Of note in this game, Michi Johnson, he was just off. He was off in this game he had zero points and yet the team was still able to come away with the win. And this is not the first time that Michi has been off in league play and the team was still able to rally and win. And again, it just shows how other guys are blossoming other than Mac Cooper and so know Zachary Davis mentioned him. Morris Yugosuk. These guys have really elevated their games, especially after the studie, like Morris, hit a couple of clutch three pointers. This is a guy that a lot of people thought might red shirt this year, but he responded to the coaching. He knows his.
[00:14:20] Know his body and everything like that. Might not be quite up to par for the SEC just yet, but you can play him eight minutes a game or whatnot and he can be effective for you. He can give you some quality minutes off the bench. And Jacoby Wright coming off the bench and being able to contribute quality minutes, quality points, that's an x factor. I thought he was a shoe in to go into the starting lineup after studie went down. He has still come off the bench and I like him in that unit. And there's some fact stat out there. I should have written it down. I think it's if he scores ten points in a game this year, the Gamecocks are undefeated because it shows you that depth and that next level of guys who can contribute. So it was a fantastic game. Player highlights BJ Mac Monster 21 points, Talon Cooper twelve. And Morris Yugasuk had ten points. Now up next for the Q Zips is a huge road matchup at Tennessee Tuesday night. The balls are currently ranked fifth in the country. That might change by the time that's tip off. With rankings released, they are sitting at 15 and four overall, five and one in conference. And I kind of feel like you know what you're going to get with Tennessee. They're usually led by a couple of good veterans who understand the system, who understand college basketball. That seems to be the case again this year. They tend to not make a lot of mistakes, usually really good defensively, and they're usually really well coached. So my quote of the game here on the road to especially get Michi into double figures, because as impressive as it is to have a team that can win when their leading scorer doesn't score, that becomes incredibly difficult to do when you're facing a top five team on the road and especially in your conference. Right? So Miles studie will be interesting to see if he's good to go. Should be really any game now. I think he was technically available against Mizzou, but clearly the team was deep enough to keep weathering the storm without him. But it's nice because help is coming regardless for a team that has evidently surged through the SEC in his absence. So very fun to see. Let's go, Qzips. Let's go, Cox. And then looking at women's basketball here, who also had a hell of a last few days. And if there was ever any doubt that the SEC still runs through the Gamecocks, that was put to bed Thursday night as the ladies beat LSU in Baton Rouge.
[00:17:11] The Gamecocks rallied from eleven points down to beat LSU. And let me tell you something, those flashy outfits that the LSU coaches had on certainly look even more dumb when you lost like that.
[00:17:26] It was just masterful from dawn to lead the team, to ride out the waves into this game and slow and steady chip away at that LSU lead. Understand it's a four quarter game. Lean on your veterans. Cardozo got better as the game went on, especially Brie hall. Really clutch late three pointers and I mean, that's the rowdiest crowd the Gamecocks will face this year. And they responded. It was funny. They asked dawn about the crowd and she said, yeah, I love them. They were calling me boo. They're booing her so much. But that's our coach. That's my coach, man. Just able to shrug it off and that just kind of speaks to the attitude, right? It's just like, hey, we are where we are. We're here to play a game. Let's make this into a positive, right?
[00:18:19] Let's not let it get to us mentally. And that showed you look at just like the volatility of personalities and coaches and things like that. And I definitely think to a degree, that rubs off. Right? Like, of course dawn will get animated and she'll get after players, she'll get after refs and things like that, but she's not flailing around and she's not just yelling at these people or seemingly making it personal and things like that. It's just business and coaching and relying on the past to sort of dictate, this is who we are. You are better than this. We can come through this together, this collective effort, right? Not a coach that's just up and down, up and down. All right? Like, I'm going to pump up the crowd and then when we don't get a call that got to go away. I'm going to be flailing around and I'm going to be stomping my feet and everything like that. No, let's play ball. It was very cool to see it was just a fantastic game. And again, it was just killing me not to be able to get on here and talk about it with you all Friday morning.
[00:19:26] However, the ladies were also in action Sunday afternoon, defeating Vandy 91 to 74. This one was close after the first quarter, but the gamecock settled into a groove and pulled away in front of the home crowd. Player highlights Camilla Cardozo, 23 points Ashlyn Watkins. Huge game here. Eleven points, three blocks and eight rebounds. Up next for the ladies is a game Thursday night at Auburn. Auburn is 13 and six overall, two and four in conference. Micro to the game here is start fast. Past couple of games, South Carolina has found themselves either down or in a very tight game early. Let's take this opportunity to start fast and have a nice lead into the half. But with that, y'all, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me on social media, Twitter or X is coxgamecocks. Instagram is just the name of the show. Cox talking Gamecocks. And please, like subscribe and and review the podcast. I appreciate all y'all. Go Cox.
