Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, men's basketball despair, women's basketball gets rescheduled, and the final AP poll for football. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:54] Okay. Welcome to episode 292 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. And I'm sad, actually. I'm not gonna lie. I'm kind of devastated. Shout out Stephen A. Smith for that quote. But, oh, my goodness gracious. Gonna get into it in a minute here. But just. Ugh. Like anyone who watches Gamecock basketball, you deserve compensation for Wednesday, January 22, 2025, because. My goodness gracious.
[00:01:37] Absolutely brutal. I put it out there. It's as brutal as brutal gets. So that's the opening. It's gonna. Our end episode two. Gonna get into it in a little bit here, but that's just. That's just how I feel. That's what's top of mind here. Hope you all are doing well this week. I feel like I've talked about it a lot, talking weather a lot on this show, but there was actually some more snow in our region in the southeast here. Whether you were down in the low country in South Carolina, all the way up to Charlotte and some of the mountains there. If you're out in New Orleans, like, freaking crazy stuff. So hope y'all were safe and sound. Warm. Maybe no school, maybe no work. All those benefits that can come with that and always get to. Don't always get that in this part of the country. So pretty wild and wacky stuff there, but, yeah, gonna jump into things here. Majority of the episode will focus on men's basketball, for better or worse, just because of. We get. Gonna get into in a second here. Just some reshuffling here with women's basketball. But let's get into it here. A bit of news before I get into both basketball teams. Here we had the finale, the. The national championship, Thus concluding the 2024 college football season. Ohio State.
[00:02:58] I guess I don't know what the word is. They're champions. They are. I was gonna say kings of the college football world, but that just felt too gross to say here. Interesting game. You know, it kind of. It kind of felt like Ohio State was going to blow him out of the water for a little bit. They kind of let Notre Dame back into the game. Interesting decision by Marcus Freeman to kick that field goal when you were down 16.
[00:03:19] Ended up still kind of being able to get back into the game there. But Ohio State realized who they Were at the end of it, threw the ball to Jeremiah Smith and thus concluding the season. It's, it's an interesting one because on one hand, that national championship game kind of shows you that, hey, the expanded playoff works from the standpoint of you had teams that suffered losses that previously would have knocked them out of the playoffs, that previously wouldn't have had even a chance to sniff a national championship. Right. In previous years, if Ohio State loses that game to Michigan, their, their season is done and Notre Dame losing to, you know, NIU whatnot, just not being ranked where they were, like their season would have been done. So it's kind of cool from that standpoint.
[00:04:15] It is interesting though, to talk about, well, you'd had the, the four seeds. You're supposed to be rewarded for that. It didn't really work out that way. Nonetheless, I think it's pretty cool where you did see a, so to speak, at large bid in Ohio State have to go the long way round playing every round. They didn't get that by which maybe we're seeing helps shake off some of that rust. But, you know, pretty cool to see that, hey, you can get in this thing and you can get to the national championship game if you weren't necessarily one of the top seeds. So for a team like South Carolina, that gives me hope for the future. But speaking of South Carolina, we did have the final AP poll come out with the season being done and, and the gamecocks are 19th, sitting at 9 and 4, as we all know. You know, the AP poll, I've lost a lot of faith in it. I think you had two voters from Ohio who didn't even have South Carolina ranked at all. So take this with a grain of salt. 19.
[00:05:18] Probably decently fair to end the year. I think this is now the second time where South Carolina finishes the year ranked under Shane Beamer, which is pretty remarkable two out of four times.
[00:05:31] Looking ahead to next season, you're seeing all these way too early top 25s. It's a fun time of year. As soon as the national championship ends, Someone releases a 25 top 25 for next year.
[00:05:43] Seeing South Carolina, some of them in the top 10, some of them, you know, top 20. If I had to guess to start the year, I'd put us right around 15, just based off of who we return. You ended the year strong. You lost the bowl game. I think people will realize that, hey, you know, you lose some key guys on defense, you lose a rocket Sanders as well. But there's still a good, good roster there in Columbia, so we'll see how it shakes out. But I do think not being ranked to start the year this year and like, understandably so hurt us down the line. When we were talking about final rankings and potential playoff push and all, all that jazz, I talked about that at length before. But yeah, finished 19th. So shout out to Shane Beamer and company there. But okay, moving over to the hardwood here, talking about games that are about to happen or have happened. First bit of news here, A little bit of a change up on the women's side of things here. The big matchup, highly anticipated matchup with LSU was actually moved due to weather. I was going to change up my whole recording schedule because you had to see how that one played out. They were supposed to play Thursday night. Now they are actually playing the tigers Friday at 5pm I think that's because of the weather in Louisiana, because the weather in Columbia certainly didn't stop the men from playing. It's actually pretty crazy in Louisiana. I think Bourbon street had like 8 or 9 inches of snow. Just bananas. So pushes the game to Friday night. Kind of a fun way to start the weekend. You know, clock off, work a little early, five on the dot, put the game on, hang out, watch that and coast right into the weekend. But going into this game here, LSU, they are still ranked number five in the country, currently at 20 and oh six and oh, in the SEC as well. Talked about this last episode, but since we haven't had the game yet, my crow to the game is just to flex our depth. Let's see, Joyce and Malaysia and some of these other players who are coming off the bench have big games and contributions. LSU has some premier players, don't get me wrong, they have good talent, they've recruited well. They've won a lot of games recently. But I think when it comes to the depth, South Carolina definitely has the advantage. So if it has to, if it's a close game in the fourth quarter, I definitely like South Carolina's chances. If you can get those contributions from the bench in those middle segments of the game, I think that's what can break teams. Because when their starters are off and you can put our bench players on and they can score just as well, that's what can push teams and can separate us. So let's see that happen yet again here. I don't like this LSU team, don't like their coach. It has become a rival.
[00:08:41] It's a good matchup. Everyone who watches college basketball will be tuned into this one again starting the weekend On a great foot. So let's absolutely go. Let's kick some butt, huh? We need that. Dawn Staley was trying her best at the men's game. Wearing the big hat, sitting courtside, chilling. Vibes were immaculate. She's trying her best.
[00:09:03] And if you're trying to find joy from watching college basketball, from the Gamecocks, at least watch our women's team because they kick ass and they are good. And we're watching young stars blossom in front of our very eyes.
[00:09:17] If you want to watch basketball and question your very existence, watch our men's team.
[00:09:25] If you want to put yourself through an emotional wringer and raise your blood pressure and earn a couple of gray hairs, pace around all these things, watch Gamecock men's basketball. If that's your idea of a fun night, boy, do I have the product for you.
[00:09:52] You have to laugh at your own pain at, at some of this, right?
[00:09:56] So let's get into it here. Wednesday night, the men hosted Florida, fifth ranked Florida, middle of the week night game. They were promoting a blackout, the Cockpit. And the atmosphere in colonial life was as good as it has been all year, for sure rivaled some of the big games from last season. That place was loud. I was watching it on TV and it was loud. You saw some of the pictures from the student section filling up their upper bowl, you know, all wearing the giveaways for the Cockpit, the black jerseys. They were into it. The crowd was into it. You had this incredible atmosphere, taking on the number five team in the country.
[00:10:40] And this, this game started so well.
[00:10:44] You know, I guess I'll tell the ending and then we'll kind of work backwards from there. Gamecocks end up losing by one point. So here we are again with a close loss, 70 to 69. Okay, so you're at home hosting number five team. You got as good of a start as really you could have asked for. You know, CMB came out playing lights out. We had the game plan really just settled, you know, and Florida was, was off their game. We took it to them. You know, they had, they have good guard play, but I think Lamont Paris and this staff said, well, you know what our strength is in the front court. We're going to put CMB and Nick Pringle, we're going to be aggressive and we're going to come after you. And it worked. And then you had big shots fallen and you're sitting there and you're thinking, okay, like this is the team that I thought we were going to see all year. You had Contributions from both bigs. CMB was playing lights out. He wasn't just doing it with scoring, he was doing it by passing the ball, being a distributor. You had Zach Davis making plays, you had Ugasuk hitting threes, you had Jacoby making some plays. That first half was as good of a half as you could have asked for.
[00:12:18] You go in, go into the half up seven again on the fifth ranked team. Okay. There wasn't this slow start that we've seen before. You didn't really, you know, like Florida, you know, kind of hung around a little bit. Whatever you get into the second half, it's crunch time here. You build that lead. What was it, 12? It was at least 12 points at one point, maybe 14.
[00:12:42] Zach Davis Absolutely posterizes this guy. Posterizes him. Dunks on his head, right. I think I want to say this was like 9 minutes left, 10 minutes left in the half. So still, you know, earlyish second half, but not right away. So you built that lead up. I want to say it was maybe nine or eight minutes. And that felt like an exclamation mark at this point.
[00:13:05] And we're not in a position to be saying like, okay, here we go. Yep, let's go. We can handle this because we haven't won an SEC game. But when you're up that much again at home, it seemed like the crowd was really affecting our play in a good way. We were jazzed up, being more aggressive, being more physical.
[00:13:24] And then in the blink of an eye, it all changed.
[00:13:29] And there was three turnovers in literally one minute. Right after that, I think we were up 12 at that point.
[00:13:38] And then you gave up back to back to back easy buckets because of turnovers, the lead gets cut by half. And that started just a downward trajectory where yes, we would have a big shot or two to push the lead back up to like seven or nine. But then Florida would come back. When they instituted they being Florida, when they put in this zone press, everything changed. We just had no answer for it.
[00:14:07] And there was mental mistake after silly error after, after bad decision. And it just let Florida creep back and creep back and creep back. We hit a big three, we turned it over in transition, right? They would get another two.
[00:14:27] The inability to bring the ball up the court after Florida would score was killing us. Just lazy passes telegraphing where you're going.
[00:14:38] And it was just a train wreck that you couldn't look away from.
[00:14:44] And it ends up where this is a one possession game late.
[00:14:50] Zach Davis gets fouled, hits one of two free throws to go up by one point. Florida goes down the length of the floor for an easy two. You had. You had time on the clock and a timeout. Lamont, let it play out. Take it up. Seems like a little bit of a rush shot. You still had time to get a decent look. Didn't get as great one as you could have missing, and you lose by one.
[00:15:17] The only time that Florida led in this ball game was when the. Was when that last shot went in.
[00:15:26] It's just as brutal as brutal gets.
[00:15:32] And y'all know me, if you've been listening to me, you know, I'm a. I'm a pretty positive person. I try to be. I try to find the joy in sports, right? I can also call it like I see it, and I'm telling y'all now, it's just not in the cards for us this year.
[00:15:47] Forget a good season, a decent season. It's just not in the cards for us this year.
[00:15:55] This team, for whatever reason, you know, I think a lot of us, myself included, you said, all right, we had an incredible season last year. We got to the tournament year two under Lamont, but we lost some key pieces. But, hey, we still retain a bunch of guys.
[00:16:14] We should be okay. This is a different team, and we can talk about the injuries, but even before the injuries, it's not like we were killing it. If anything, we've looked a little bit better since the injuries, but that's a topic for a different day.
[00:16:31] This team, and I'm just calling it like I see it, you know, I want these guys to succeed. I'm fans of theirs. You know, I've. I've enjoyed seeing Jacoby get better and better each year. He might not have made some of the smartest decisions this past game, but he has gotten better and better and better his time at Carolina. I love cmb. You know, seeing Zach Davis do his thing, I thought this was a Zach Davis legacy game. I was ready for it.
[00:17:01] But for whatever reason, this team, they just can't close. They don't know how to close.
[00:17:08] We saw it against Auburn, which, granted, that's the number two team, and the atmosphere wasn't quite what it was this past Wednesday. But even so, you let them creep back in and win late.
[00:17:20] Vandy, you couldn't get over the hump here against Florida. You were up big and you let it slip right through your fingers. Because of our mental mistakes, you know, this wasn't like some guy on Florida went unconscious for three. For half the game.
[00:17:38] We turned the ball over a Bajillion times in critical spots.
[00:17:46] And so these things that we were on the right side of last year, whether it's a lucky bounce here or there, or being able to make those passes in clutch time or hit those clutch free throws, we're on the wrong side of it this year. And the result is winless in the sec. And, you know, it's just.
[00:18:10] It's a group that I think in that situation maybe lacks a little confidence in that they can close it.
[00:18:19] You know, like, late in the game, Florida was at the line, and I was looking at our players, and I don't know if this is just me. If I was, you know, wanting to, you know, like, if you were trying to see more than there was, they looked like they knew this was going to happen. You know, like, almost like, oh, my God, here we go again. And I think his fans, we were thinking that, like, this can't be happening. The turnover late in the game, I. It's. I don't have the timestamp for it, but it was a inbounds pass. I believe Davis was inbounding it to Jacoby, and it was just a lazy pass, bounce pass that got poked out. Florida gets the bucket. Like, what are we doing right? And, like, coming up the court, like, one option.
[00:19:09] I don't like that. You know, I don't like not calling the timeout at the very end. I understand you ended up, you know, pushing it and, you know, it wasn't a terrible look. You could have gotten better one. But I would have thought maybe you call a timeout there and, you know, have a set play.
[00:19:31] You know, I. I still do believe, like, Lamont is a good coach. This is a weird stretch right now that we're going through, you know, but when you're going through something like this and when you have a loss like that, everyone. It has to look in the mirror. Everyone.
[00:19:52] You know, like, why didn't we have answers for that weird zone press they were doing?
[00:19:57] Why are we turning the ball over in such critical spots? I understand we're missing our point guard, but, like, come on, why have we missed free throws in clutch time late? I know, I know. They're kids. They're kids.
[00:20:15] Shout out, big cat. But, like, come on.
[00:20:20] So, yeah, it's a tough one. This was absolutely brutal.
[00:20:25] And, you know, the only way out is through. You gotta just keep showing up to work every day. You gotta keep putting that time in.
[00:20:34] You gotta win one. Eventually you'd think, right? You know, you gotta find a way to win a couple It's. I think it's a combination of a few things. There's not that one closer. You know, CMB can only do so much.
[00:20:48] There's not the one closer. The league is really, really good. We're hurt right now.
[00:20:54] Those are three pretty big ones, but yeah, that was absolutely, absolutely brutal. Some player highlights from this one. CMB, 14 points, five boards, eight assists. Again, he did everything possible. Zach Davis, 22 points. Was so ready to celebrate with these guys and they come up short. Just brutal. Up next for the Gamecocks is a rematch with Mississippi State, who, if you'll remember correctly, gave us our first conference loss of the season. So lovely. This game is at home. Tip offer 1pm Fun news. I will be in attendance for this game. I haven't been to a men's basketball game in a very long time, but now, being within driving distance of Columbia going to the game, made that decision before the Florida game. But nonetheless, let's go support. You know, let's keep rooting for these guys. If you see your boy, maybe say hello.
[00:21:53] But let's go, let's root them in. Right now, the Bulldogs are ranked 14th, sitting at 15 and 4 overall, 3 and 3 in the conference. Micro to the game. It's. It's truly hard to even say at this point because it's just, what, what can you do? But we're going to go with hit your free throws specifically late in the game if it's close. 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.
