Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox talking, Gamecock's reaction and analysis to the recent baseball series loss, and also the men's tennis season comes to an end. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:55] Okay. Welcome to episode 241 of Cox talking Game Cox. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. And y'all, I'm just down. I'm down. Was a tough couple of days for us Gamecocks. And yeah, you're sitting here. I'm sitting here on a Sunday evening scrolling twitter, scrolling instagram. Just seeing our fan base having to process these last couple of days and talking about moving on from head coaches, not moving on from head coaches and, well, one coach in particular. Get into that in a second here. But yeah, I'm just downtrodden, man. I'm just down and feel like I haven't opened up an episode where I've just said I'm sad in a while. Really? Kind of like since football season maybe, you know, it's just been a interesting baseball season where, you know, kind of felt like keeping your head above water for the most part. And now it just, my goodness, just not feeling the best in game Cock nation today, this Sunday. But it is Mother's day, so shout out to the moms.
[00:02:11] We love y'all. We appreciate y'all every day, not just today. And yeah, hope y'all had a good weekend out there. From other reasons, I hope that y'all had some joy with the exception of Gamecock baseball and really Gamecock athletics this weekend. So I'm going to recap the weekend scores, dive into baseball and then get out of here. Might be on the shorter side because not feeling particularly masochist today and don't feel like going through a whole lot of, whole lot of pain reviewing these last couple of days here. And I'm sure you all don't necessarily want to listen to that either, but we still have to process this and address this stuff and that's part of doing the show, right. It's not always, it's not always sunshine and rainbows here, but let's get into some scores here. Not a ton to report really. Only from Friday here. Softball lost to Texas A and M three to two. And then the men's tennis, they lost to Uva four to one. And that loss ends the dual season for the team as their post season run comes to a close. I do think that the doubles team, we have a representative who will be going on to that in a post season situation. But from a entire team perspective, the combined efforts and things like that. Unfortunately, their season came to a close. So good run for the men's tennis team. They had some big wins. They were highly ranked for most of the year, and just a tough way to end for sure. So shout out to those guys. But all right, let's turn our sights to the thing that might not be what most Gamecock fans want to talk about.
[00:04:01] But funny enough, ironically enough, it is certainly top of mind for our entire fan base, and that is the performance that we saw this past series from Gamecock baseball against Georgia here. So as I talked about last episode, this series had enormous implications, and it truly did feel like it was the biggest series of the year. I mean, you can look back at a few, you can say the Kentucky series, Vanderbilt, Florida, those were big series. And the way the team responded to them, I think it made those series hold more weight, if that makes sense. You know, going into the Kentucky series, you're like, Kentucky's having a good year. This would be a great test for the Gamecocks. How can they go out and perform against them? And then you end up performing well and you're like, well, that's an amazing series. You know, going into this Georgia series, you had that opportunity to perform really well at home and put yourself in a very advantageous position to host a regional because we're at that point in the year where you're talking about the postseason and really, when you're looking at the analysis and the rankings and the things like that, you feel good about Carolina getting to that postseason. So it was really a discussion of, well, how will things shake out nationally? Who's hosting, basically. So going into this series, when we talked about it before and everyone had just talked about it, social media, friend groups, whatever you needed to come into this series at home on top of it all and perform really well. And, you know, you're going through the scenarios in your head of, all right, well, if you win two out of three, that's great. If you win all three, oh, my gosh. Like, you know, you're basically probably a lock to host that regional. And you're like, well, like, you know, if you lose one, you know, here we go. But you felt good about the offense going in. You certainly felt good about the bullpen for the most part. You know, Georgia also a good team, right? We expected a ultra competitive series.
[00:06:19] Instead, we saw the opposite of what needed to happen, and Uga just simply put beat up on the Gamecocks all weekend and ended up sweeping Carolina at home.
[00:06:35] So it just still, it just stinks to even say that out loud. It just really does. I just, I feel so bad for the seniors who have given their all to this school, to this program and for this to be their last home appearance, that just really stinks. And I feel bad for our fan base. You know, we take a lot of pride in our baseball program and we know the standards that we have and I understand that, you know, expecting Omaha like every year, of course, that's like just not going to happen, but trying to get there every couple of years. Yeah. Or being in a position going into the second to last weekend of the year to be like, yeah, of course we're hosting a regional. Like, that's really kind of what we expect, you know, strong postseasons.
[00:07:34] And to come into this series saying, all right, the stars are kind of aligning here, it's going to be a hard fought series, but the guys can step up. We're at home. We've played well at home. And just to come up empty, literally empty, I just feel bad for our entire fan base to be let down like this. And as a fan myself, I'm truly left scratching my head trying to make sense of what happened this series and to a degree what has happened this season. I mean, Georgia had struggled on the road all year and I mean, I even think I saw something like even into last season they struggled on the road and yet they were able to come into founders and be the aggressor and they just came ready to play from the first inning of the first game. They were better and they out slugged their way to a sweep.
[00:08:36] It just, you really are just left throwing your hands in the air, scratching your head and just saying like, what did we just witness?
[00:08:45] South Carolina did not have that edge to them in this incredibly important series. And it's like we have seen that, though, you know, like maybe not this season and I think that's kind of part of the head scratcher. But like, you have seen this program step up to the plate, no pun intended, in those big time series and in those big time opponents this year, maybe not, you know, Clemson, this, I don't know. I just don't know. So I'm not going to go into detail about each game, but for reference and the context of the series.
[00:09:25] Game one, South Carolina lost 14 to ten. That was a wild and crazy game. Literally from the first pitch. Carolina battled back in the first inning, exchanging several runs and several runs. You end up losing 14 to ten. Fricking football score.
[00:09:43] Game two, South Carolina lost eleven to five and game three.
[00:09:50] You thought for a second that South Carolina was kind of in the driver's seat for a little bit here. South Carolina ends up losing 14 to six.
[00:09:58] And the things that had gone right maybe for the team so far, that point bullpen didn't in the third game. So every which way you looked, it was tough. I mean, at times in this series, there were flickers of hope, but overall, you saw poor defense, shoddy pitching, and although the times the offense battled, you just had UGA scoring over ten runs each game. Just simply weren't able to keep up with that. I mean, who could?
[00:10:31] So now you have this team sitting with an SEC record below 500 for the first time since the league play started this year, and everything about the regionals where they'll go and things like that is just one big question mark.
[00:10:50] And so it has you sitting here. You know, it's, it feels like a seminal moment, not just in this season, but really about the Mark Kingston era.
[00:11:07] And again, you go on social media, you're seeing a lot of back and forth. A lot. And naturally. So there's a ton of frustration out there. I mean, I'm sure that entire clubhouse is frustrated, too, probably more than anybody. Not probably more than anybody, but our fans, we take such pride in this program that this is just not the state that we want to be in.
[00:11:35] And so there's a lot of people out there who are ready to move on. It's been, what, seven years, the Mark Kingston era, and you've seen those inconsistencies.
[00:11:50] There's also the other side where people are arguing that you've been in the postseason, right? You've gotten to the dance more times than not. And that's kind of what you ask for out of a program.
[00:12:05] Give yourself a chance at the end of the year, be in the tournament, and that's, and that's what you can do.
[00:12:13] And I was thinking about it and it's just like, I equated it to, like, sitting in a rocking chair, like, with this season as a fan. And it's also reflective of Mark Kingston, I think, where you'll have a couple of good weeks and maybe a good month and you kind of lean in and you're like, oh, yard cox back, like, are we, are we gonna get hot? Are we doing this? And then you lay an egg in the mid week or you get swept at home by Georgia.
[00:12:51] There's questionable pitching rotation, there's questionable bullpen decision, there's bad defense late in the year, just mistakes that shouldn't be happening. And then you sit back and you say, well, no, what is that? Like, we can't be bought into this. You know, you lose two games to your rival. What is this? And then you start to look around at some of the other things and is the coach interacting with some of the other coaches that we see on campus? Is, is this really what we want? Are we happy with just making the post season?
[00:13:30] And it just makes you think, like, what, what are we doing here? And it's tricky because you're talking about a guy who brought this team to the supers last year and who's been the head man for some pretty good teams. But I think the argument is that there's been perpetual underperformance, lineups that don't live to their potential, guys that don't develop to their potential.
[00:14:04] Again, questionable decisions with rotations and sometimes questionable bullpen management.
[00:14:14] And I think you're seeing our fan base just kind of tired of it, you know, and it's not like there was one moment, one year where you could really hang your hat on it and say, well, you know, we did do that. You know, it's these moments. And then there have been injuries, and this year you don't even really have that really to blame.
[00:14:34] So I don't know, this series really, again, it feels like a moment where everyone's just like, oh, my gosh, just like, here we go again, like a huge moment. You come up short, like, when are we going to stop doing that? And you're getting fatigue from coming up short in some of these moments. And the one consistency is the guy in charge.
[00:15:06] So I don't blame anybody for wanting to move on from Kingston.
[00:15:12] I don't know if the administration and the athletic department are going to do that. Like, I, part of me really does think that they're looking at this with, well, we made the postseason. You know, you've been solid in SEC play. You know, if we take a chance, what if you, what if you take a step backwards?
[00:15:32] I don't know.
[00:15:33] You know, I think you could probably benefit from a new change. And if the writing's on the wall that it's quickly, not the guy you can move on from, that maybe there is someone out there who will be a little bit more bought in, who understands the standard, who understands the culture, right. Who maybe can connect with the fan base a little, a little more, you know, and it's funny because the things that I'm saying now, it kind of makes you think of a recent change that we went in the football program, you needed someone to have a better voice, maybe to address some potential culture issues, to just bring a new philosophy and re energize the program.
[00:16:19] Maybe baseball could benefit from that. I don't know. But I'll tell you right now, in my rocking chair, I'm leaning all the way back. I am testing the limits of that damn rocking chair because after getting swept at home in the most important series of the year, it just really feels like unacceptable. And I think the answers that we get from Kingston are just wearing thin on everybody because it just seems like it's the same deal.
[00:16:54] So I don't know. This was, this was. This was a tough one. And again, I'm not blaming anybody who doesn't have confidence in the leadership in this team, but at the same time, I'm also going to sit here and say don't hold your breath for a change because seemingly this has been a theme almost his entire tenure, which is crazy. But I guess we got to see how this season shakes out. Because if, if things continue to trend in the negative way, maybe that really is the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. So it begs the question, what is next for the Gamecocks? Here, the team will travel to Knoxville to take on the top ranked Tennessee volunteers. And sitting at 13 wins in the league, the team has to find a way to steal at least one away from the Vols before the SEC tournament rolls around. I'll touch more on this in the next episode. Despite that series starting on Thursday, it's going to be one of those I'm talking about this the series as a preview, but by the time you listen to it, game one will have already been played. But what else am I going to talk about? You know what I mean? So for now, all we can do is just ask and hope that this team is able to flush away this poor weekend, which they have been able to do this year, and be ready to have a strong showing on the road. Because you can't have the worst happen again. You just can't. It needs to be desperation.
[00:18:28] Hungry Dog runs faster and go up to Knoxville and give him hell. 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.
