Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, reaction to the women's basketball team losing in the national championship. And also a weekend recap from around USC athletics. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:55] Okay. Welcome to episode 311 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. And I'm sad. I'm sad, y'all. I'm sure we're all in the same boat here. Sitting here after the national championship game, watching our women's team fail to repeat as champions, and having a very, very tough showing in the title game. And, you know, we're just going to jump right into it here. You know, might mix up the order of things here, but it's just too hard to not talk about this off the jump here. So, yeah, that concludes this season of Gamecock women's basketball, with the ladies losing to UConn in the national championship game. 82. 59. So there's a lot to unpack here. There's a lot to talk about, but I think the biggest thing that I'm telling myself and I've talked with my friends about and everything like that is this was still a fantastic accomplishment to make it to the Final Four, yet alone.
[00:02:11] The national championship game is an accomplishment that is a really, really hard thing to do. Like, this is nothing to balk at that South Carolina had a poor showing. And, you know, whatever it may be, right, this season might have been, I mean, at least in recent memory, in the last four or five years you want to call it, this is, I think, Don's best coaching job of the season. This team was different than the past ones that we've had those last several years.
[00:02:49] The landscape of women's college basketball was different than it's been. It was deeper. There are stars across the board on multiple teams.
[00:02:59] Competition is just harder.
[00:03:02] But internally at South Carolina, it was a different type of team.
[00:03:07] And then, yes, you had to deal with a big injury when you lose. Ashland Watkins for the year. A player who fits the mold for a lot of what dawn likes to do in terms of how she runs the team and the identity of her teams, where you have these big post players who are athletic.
[00:03:28] So for dawn to manage the adversity, weather some of these storms, and to still find us in this game is still. It's just remarkable. It is so. That's what I keep telling myself.
[00:03:44] And winning national championships are hard.
[00:03:48] Winning is hard. And in the tournament, your margin for error is so slim. And South Carolina still found itself there. So it's a tip of the cap to Don Staley and for this entire team.
[00:04:05] Like when we look at that banner in Colonial life that says Tampa Final Four, yes, we'll know that we didn't cap it off with lifting a trophy. But I do think, especially over time, this team will be remembered for getting there and dealing with some expectations and pressure and things like that and coming together and finding their own identity.
[00:04:34] You know, this team lost a couple of times this year, and that's something that doesn't happen a lot at South Carolina lately. Right, right. So they had to learn how to do that and they had to find different ways to win. It wasn't always the same.
[00:04:51] So, again, it's a tip of the cap to Don Staley for getting us here and for all of those players for fighting and getting their way to the Final Four when their backs were against the wall in the Elite 8 and Sweet 16.
[00:05:07] And then, I mean, in that final four game against Texas, you know that there was an early storm in that one, too. Got off to a slow start, but you weathered it and then you roared back and you had probably your best game of the tournament.
[00:05:21] That's something that cannot be discredited.
[00:05:25] And then if we're talking this game here, this championship game, it just wasn't in the cards today. You know, team started off hot and it looked like this was going to be a back and forth, high scoring affair. And then it just got sideways. The offense was colder than cold for a majority of the game.
[00:05:48] Could not find a rhythm. And then when you get the rhythm, UConn calls a timeout there in the second half, and it just killed it, you know, and you're going up against a team in UConn, a program in UConn that has elite talent and love them or hate him, Geno is still one of the best coaches in the game.
[00:06:14] And it was a team that had a lot to prove and unfortunately, I just think matched up tough for us. You know, you saw when they were able to play their way and capitalize on mistakes. You saw what happened when they played us earlier in the season.
[00:06:33] And it wasn't the case necessarily a lot of this game. Right. Like, defensively, I think the effort was there for large swaths of the game, and they did not shoot well from three, at least, you know, during the meaningful time. Right.
[00:06:51] Pulled away, you know, they hit some shots. But on paper, defensively, South Carolina had a really good effort for a majority of the game.
[00:07:02] It was just offensively Whether it was the way UConn was guarding us or just our inability to create space, our inability to hit the big shots.
[00:07:16] You had a couple of bad turnovers.
[00:07:20] It just wasn't in the cards. You know, the things that you needed to do in this game just didn't quite happen.
[00:07:29] You know, you needed some star efforts from our stars, and offensively speaking, you didn't really get that. And you had multiple star efforts from UConn. You know, like, your mind kind of goes to Beckers, like, okay, we got to stop her. Then they have Fudd go off strong. Like, you know, their top talent can match ours, you know, and the idea would be, let it be a game about our depth where we probably could win. We have that advantage. Unfortunately, the stars didn't quite match up, and their top talent exceeded ours today, and the deficit was just too big.
[00:08:14] Just couldn't find a rhythm offensively, just could. Not playing off our game.
[00:08:21] So it's a shame, you know, it's. It stinks to end up on the wrong side of this game in such a manner.
[00:08:31] But UConn was just the better team today. They had a great tournament, and they went into this tournament with a lot of momentum. You know, they had a couple of weird games. You know, they lost a few, but they had a lot of momentum going into this one. And again, it's. It's a program, you know, like, this is not. This is not a plucky team that you lost to. You know, this is UConn women's basketball that for decades has been synonymous with the sport.
[00:09:04] And you got to give them credit. You know, it just sucks. It sucks. You never want to lose.
[00:09:11] You thought you could maybe, like, what a story it would have been for this team to battle the way they did all year and to come out the other side of it as champions.
[00:09:22] It felt fitting, felt poetic, almost. Right.
[00:09:27] Just wasn't in the cards today. And, you know, and that's. And that's sports, you know, but if we're going to start turning the page on this season, right, you gotta. You gotta sit in it for a little bit. You turn the page like, we're gonna be all right.
[00:09:43] You know, like, when you talk about programs in women's college basketball, South Carolina, I mean, it's. It's gotta be top two. I think the top two programs in the sport played this afternoon.
[00:10:00] You know, it wasn't as close as you would have liked, but I think you look around women's college basketball, and there's some good teams, you know, UCLA had a good team this year.
[00:10:13] Southern Cal had a good team this year. You know, LSU is good, but programs, you know, they're building their way, of course, but Don Staley has built something at South Carolina. Multiple national titles, and the sport is getting more competitive.
[00:10:33] There's certainly more parody than it was 10 years ago.
[00:10:38] So it's going to be hard to stay at the top. But they talked about it on tv. I fully agree. As long as Don Staley is at the helm at South Carolina, like, we're going to be all right. We're going to. We're going to be hanging around there. We're going to be towards the top in the rankings pretty much every year, right? Like, you know, perennial. Perennially, if you will.
[00:11:02] And not every year is going to end in a championship. But you keep recruiting well, you are a destination for portal players.
[00:11:13] The school will continue to dedicate resources to it. You know, there's a lot of excitement and respect for that program. So nil deals will be possible within the local community and nationally. You know, you saw some of the great things they did with Under Armour. National, national commercials. Really, really cool stuff. So we're going to be okay. You know, Don has continued to recruit well. There's some exciting talent that's still young on this team.
[00:11:42] You know, you talk about Malaysia and Joyce, Tessa, and there's still opportunities for some of these older players to contribute.
[00:11:54] So you got to retool. You got to kind of look at, hey, what were some of our weaknesses this year? How can we correct that? Do we have it in the pipeline, recruiting wise? Do we have to go into the portal? Do we? You know, Camila Cardoza was a portal addition. It took her a little bit of time to grow into her role and to develop the way that she ultimately did, but she's a huge reason why you end up winning that national championship.
[00:12:22] So you can go into the portal and you can find if you want a player, whether it's a big or a guard, whatever it may be.
[00:12:31] So that's what I think the next step of all this is retool, reassess, come back stronger than ever. This was a fantastic effort this year to get to the national title game.
[00:12:46] With having some adversity, not being completely as dominant as you have been in years past to fight when you had your backs against the wall in the Elite 8 Sweet 16.
[00:13:01] It was a really, really great team effort to get there. And I commend the team, you know, and I think we're all proud of them. It Sucks today. It's going to suck when you think about it and be like, damn, like, that game really went sideways. Like, that was not what I expected.
[00:13:20] But I think we're still proud of this team. I certainly am. And kudos to them. Next year we're going to be rallying behind them just like we always do. Don Staley is still a legend and there's still some fantastic players on this roster who are already going to be here next year. So until then, onward.
[00:13:43] But okay, let's change gears here a little bit here. Let's talk baseball. And then, and then we'll, we'll end this show with a quick weekend wraparound. We recap there. Weekend wraparound recap. How about that for a tongue twister, huh? Not too shabby. All right, so you gotta laugh through some of this pain here, but all right, we're talking yard cocks here.
[00:14:07] Might not cheer us up, but nonetheless. The Gamecocks were in Starkville, Mississippi this weekend, taking on the Bulldogs. Obviously, you know, we were all kind of locked in on basketball this weekend, but there was baseball still being played. Game 1 Friday night, South Carolina got the W, which was fantastic to see. You know, you had that midweek win, then you're taking on an SEC team. SEC has given South Carolina trouble this year. So it was fantastic to get that early win. Carolina actually battled back. You know, they, they started the, the game off with run. Mississippi State answered. But then in the middle innings, Carolina tacked on a couple fourth and the sixth and then in the ninth. So was a really nice effort there. You had, you had Jake McCoy getting this start and the win. Brendan Sweeney with the save, three inning save. So a good effort from the pitching staff there. And then offensively, player highlights here. Jordan Carrion two for five with Run Arby, one rbi. Excuse me. And then Bo Hollins went four for five with four rbi. Massive night for him. Really, really cool to see. Unfortunately, though, things went south and the other two games in Saturday, South Carolina lost 11 to 4. Tough one there. Mississippi State just had the scoring going early and often and just was a little too much for South Carolina to come back from there. Jarvis Evans got the start and the loss. Player highlights in this one, KJ Scobee went 1 for 3, Henry Kazmar 2 for 4 with 3 RBI.
[00:15:55] So then that brings us to the rubber game Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately. Yeah, it went, it went l wrong for South Carolina and we ended up losing the series and lost this game six nothing. Mississippi State put up a four spot, or, excuse me, a five spot in the fourth. There we go. And tacked on one more in the fifth. South Carolina not able to get any offense going. Just a tough afternoon for the Gamecocks. Brandon Stone got the start and the loss. Matthew Becker finished the game in relief. As far as player highlights go, I mean, you don't score any runs. It's kind of tough there.
[00:16:35] Yeah. South Carolina only two hits in this one there, so Nathan hall one for four and Blake Jackson one for three. So another tough weekend in the books for Gamecock baseball. It was nice to get that one win there, right? Avoiding the sweep.
[00:16:51] Thought you had maybe a little bit of momentum going, but things have still been stuck in the mud for this team, especially in SEC play. So with women's basketball officially wrapped up, we'll be able to talk a little bit more in depth about baseball moving forward. But it has been a continued struggle since getting to SEC play for this team here, and I've shared some thoughts of concern earlier. We're not going to dive into that too much there, but there may be opportunity to talk more about that as we get deeper into the spring and into the summer there. Then to wrap things up here, we'll do a weekend recap. I kind of like this reverse, reverse engineered episode here. Women's tennis was in action Friday. They beat Missouri 4 nothing. Beach volleyball lost to FAU 32 and also lost to Texas 4 to 1. Softball though, did get the win. They beat Ole Miss 1 nothing. And then they also lost to Ole Miss Saturday afternoon. Men's tennis on Saturday beat Georgia 4 nothing. Beach volleyball lost to Florida State 5 nothing and also lost to LSU 5 nothing. And then on Sunday here, softball got the win, beating Ole Miss 4 to 2 to win the series. That is a nice series win right there. Really great to see that from the ladies. Women's tennis. Tough weekend for women's tennis. They lost 5 to 2 to Vanderbilt and that is all she wrote, folks. So with that, 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.
