Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, women's basketball has a back and forth couple of days. Men's basketball has a tough loss again. And a weekend recap from around Carolina Athletics. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:56] Okay.
[00:00:58] Welcome to episode 372 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. And I hope y' all are staying warm. Hope, hope no one snowed in. I hope everyone has power out there. I mean, my goodness, this was no joke. You know, a lot of times there's the predictions and things like that and it's all, you know, hoopla and it's a bust. This was pretty legit. I mean, I'm here in Charlotte and it's like friggin ice age out there. It's cold, it is icy. I'm trying to take my dog out for a walk and I'm slipping and sliding and so is he. And it's just, it's just the banana land. I mean, my goodness. So a very interesting Sunday. I feel like I just have living in like a time warp. Saturday I was able to get out of the house a little bit, try and socialize and feel like a person knowing I was going to be cooped up for all of Sunday and probably Monday and who knows, maybe even Tuesday as well. Just eating a lot because I got nothing else to do and staring outside trying to see if anything's going to melt and all the while trying to stay sane and things like that. But my goodness, yeah, it was a doozy of a weather weekend. I hope that no matter where you are, seems like you probably felt this in some way, shape or form. I hope you're safe, hope you're warm. If you have power, my goodness, thanks. Thanks be. And if you don't hang in there and we're all in this together and soon enough will thaw out and it'll feel like a distant memory when it's a bajillion degrees and we're sitting in Willie B. For week one. But yeah, got a, a lot of action from this weekend outside of that. I mean, you got some really good playoff games in the NFL. You have college football throughout. And of course we're going to dive into all of the Gamecock basketball here. So yeah, let's jump into things here, starting with a weekend recap here. On Friday, swimming and diving was in action against Georgia Tech. The women got a win, 197 to 102. The men unfortunately took the L 151 to 137. Women's tennis was in action against the U. Miami with a win, nice win there, 4 to 1. And men's tennis was also in action Friday against Michigan State, also Getting a win, 4, 2.
[00:03:19] Saturday, women's tennis was in action again against Duke and unfortunately took the loss for nothing. So all told, a pretty good weekend from around Gamecock athletics there. Which brings us to Saturday as the men's basketball team was in action.
[00:03:37] They were out in the other planet, as I like to call it, College Station against A and M. And unfortunately they might as well have been on a different planet because things did not look good pretty much from the word go, as A and M cruised to a victory against the Gamecocks, 92 to 69. A&M talked about it going into this, was right at the top of the sec.
[00:04:03] Their season has gone pretty well up until this point, so it was going to be a challenge. We talked about their high powered offense and how I was thinking if there was a way to make this game within reach, that you bring them down and play your type of game here. But allowing A and M to get to 92 points certainly was not that. First half concluded with A and M being up by pretty much 20 points. Second half was more competitive as we had seen from time to time with this Gamecocks club this season. But it was far too little and far too late here with, you know, Carolina all suffering almost a 30 point loss yet again. Talking about getting blown out here so quickly. Going to go over some player highlights here. Meeche Johnson with 26 points, Kobe Knox with 18 and Miles Studi with 11 points. That's pretty much it. It falls off a cliff, the production after that. Mike had five, E.J. walker had five.
[00:05:06] Yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty much it. I mean you got, you got Grant Polk logging good minutes here with zero points.
[00:05:12] You got Elijah Strong starting playing almost 14 minutes of the ball game, zero points. So yeah, I mean I, I don't really know like what more else there is to say at this point. I mean it's, I feel like a broken record here where this is just not okay, you know. And I saw some discourse online, talking to my friends about it and like I want it to work. Like, like there's lots of people out there who like Lamont who were excited about his, you know, energy, the new era, turning the page and things like that.
[00:05:50] And we all want it to work, you know, or wanted it to Work, Right. And at a certain point, though, you have to just say, it's not working. It's just not.
[00:06:01] And I don't want to look backwards. I don't want to do that, but I'm gonna do it.
[00:06:07] With Frank Martin, at least we were competitive in most of the SEC games. Like, we were a hard out. You know, you had a couple of great wins with Frank and you know, that stand out, but we were usually right around the middle of the pack, SEC wise. You know, you would lose some inexplicable games early in the year, and you would maybe lose those games that you shouldn't have against lesser SEC teams. But for the majority of the time, we were tough outs, and it's because of his style of play. You played really good defense. It was the offense and the recruiting that lacked. With Frank, we don't even have that now.
[00:06:49] You like, like you're losing by almost 30 points to a and M. You know, you're coming up shy in these other games. You've had blowout losses throughout the last two years.
[00:07:00] And when you look at the majority of the time of Paris's tenure, really, with the exception of that one tournament season, this has been what we are. We're just not that great, not that good.
[00:07:14] So while at times, yes, I have been a prisoner of hope because I just don't want to think that the team I root for is that bad.
[00:07:24] We have to be honest with ourselves.
[00:07:26] And I think you have to start talking about going in another direction here, and it stinks. But I'm tired of seeing us get blown out time and time again.
[00:07:38] I mean, we're 2 and 5 in the SEC, you know, and you look around, there are programs that get it together, and I don't know if it's, you know, commitment from the top.
[00:07:54] I don't know if it's nil allocations, I don't know.
[00:07:59] But you have to be better than this. Like, there's no way that you can just throw your hands up and say, well, that's what South Carolina basketball is going to be now.
[00:08:07] Just not good. No, it's not okay. Right. We have to hold ourselves to a high standard in the sec. That's what you do, right? We're an athletics forward conference, and we are a school that wants to be competitive in these things. Right. Like, we have a very nice arena.
[00:08:25] We've had infrastructure built up around all of our athletics programs with the academic buildings and the student housing and everything like that.
[00:08:33] So you have to put your money where your Mouth is. And right now, our men's basketball program is in the basement.
[00:08:41] And, yeah, sure, maybe this team is, like, a little bit more talented than last year, but is it really. Does it really matter? Like, you know, like, wins and losses are what matter, right? Recruiting matters.
[00:08:57] You don't see that with Paris minus the one year. And I. And I talked about this the other episode, but it's just like, it doesn't make sense that you hit so well in recruiting your second year on the job, and yet things have changed so drastically. So I don't know.
[00:09:17] You know, I feel like it's gonna be. There's gonna be some ups this year. There's gonna be a lot of downs for the rest of the way because there's gonna be some games that, yeah, you can be competitive in, and it'd be exciting. There's gonna. There's gonna be some games that we win, which is good. I want this team to win. Right. I'm not gonna root against our own team, but, like, there's just this underlying sense of something is not right.
[00:09:42] And you have.
[00:09:45] What's it. He has four years, Paris, right where this is year four, right now, you have just one year that seems to be the outlier where the team was good and the rest of them have not been good.
[00:09:59] So very unfortunate state for the men's team.
[00:10:05] And, yeah, I mean, that's. It's really. All you can do is just watch the games and you're hoping for the best, but there's just this underlying sense of something's gotta give.
[00:10:18] And with a new athletic director in Donati, who, if you look at what happened with the football program, like, I think he means business.
[00:10:29] And whether he's, you know, he gives some. Paris. Some sort of ultimatum going into next year, or he says, you know what? We're gonna have to make a change this year.
[00:10:38] I don't know. But I do think something has got to give, and we'll see how that goes. Next game for the guys is Wednesday night at home against Florida. So another challenge, and we'll see. We'll see what the guys. What the guys can do here. I mean, if you're going to think of a crow to the game, it's got to be just be on fire from threes, just shoot out of the gym, right? Just come out there guns blazing. Do not have one of these large halftime deficits that you have to dig yourself out of, because you're not going to be able to do it against a team like Florida. Not going to be Able to do it against many teams in general.
[00:11:16] So come out of the gates hot, hit your, hit your threes and be within a reasonable amount or up, God forbid, at halftime.
[00:11:28] But then, turning the page to women's basketball here, have to touch on a crazy couple of days that the ladies have had. So we're going to look back to Thursday evening and I was recording as this game was tipping off. The ladies were at Oklahoma and so finished up recording, started watching this game, and this was no walk in the park. I said that on the episode that, you know, you're looking at what Oklahoma was ranked and their record and things like that. Like, they're a fine squad and on the road too, nonetheless. But this was not easy. Like, you know, a lot of times you're like, all right, this is a respectable team we're going up against. But come the late third, fourth quarter, our ladies are going to just lock stuff down and we're going to get it done. This was a back and forth game and from my perspective, we really struggled in the post play. You had some good looks that you were not able to convert. It seemed like any time we were trying to get a couple of things going our way, get on a little bit of a run, it just didn't really transpire, at least for a long run. Credit to Oklahoma, they battled, they battled late. South Carolina battled late. It was a back and forth game and ultimately the ladies fell in overtime, 94 to 82. So it was tough to see, but, you know, that's, you know, it was, it was one of those weird games that just stuff was off, Stuff was off. And so fast forward to Sunday afternoon as the ladies hosted unbeaten Vanderbilt at cla. And it was a horse of a different color in this matchup as the ladies dominated and cruised to a victory. 103, 74. Again, mind you, Vanderbilt was unbeaten coming into this matchup. They were ranked fifth in the country going into this matchup.
[00:13:22] And so it's funny how it works where you're going against Oklahoma, who was not as highly regarded as Vandy. Maybe the team was looking ahead a little bit to that, to this matchup. I'm not too sure.
[00:13:35] But nonetheless, it was an incredible response by Don Staley and this team to bounce back at home. You know, every reason in the world to be like, this is going to be a weird game, crappy weather outside, you know, and all that jazz. But nonetheless, a lot of props to the team here, really. Just from the word go, I mean, ending the first quarter with a healthy lead going into halftime with a healthy lead and then just dominating in that second half, particularly in the third quarter, which is what we have seen in the past from Dawn Staley's teams. So kudos to the ladies for bouncing back there. And I think it's, it's a funny year with, with this team too, where on any given night we can dominate and on any given night, if things are clicking, you can beat anyone. You can be the top three four team in the country that you are. Right. But there's also some games where if things aren't clicking exactly right, you can let some of these opponents hang around. And especially when you're on the road or in a neutral environment, sometimes momentum can swing the other way and it's tough. So it's definitely something to be mindful of when you watch this team and obviously Don Staley is on it and I think it's just continued reps and you need to have good post play and you need to be find a way to generate that day in and day out. But when you're looking at this game here, some player highlights here.
[00:15:11] Tessa Johnson leading all scores. Actually, excuse me, coming up with 20 points shout out Tessa, she went 4 for 7 from beyond the arc. But it was Latson, Tania Latson who was leading the way with 21 points. So nice bounce back game from the squad in general. Joyce Edwards with 16, Medina with 17, which was great to see there. And I don't know, it's just a wacky year in the SEC and that was a really strong way to cap off the weekend, you know, that'll warm you up a little bit. Am I right?
[00:15:49] Up next for the ladies, they are playing Thursday night at Auburn. So looking at a quote of the game here, continue to get strong post play. I think that's going to be something that we're going to really need to focus on here down the stretch as we turn the page and into February.
[00:16:05] So something that you're going to be mindful of there and something to fun. It's always fun to track, right? And to see like hey, are we able to generate this more consistently day in and day out but not much else going on in Gamecock Nation. There's some very interesting rumblings or stories that have been developed over the at the transfer portal out in other programs. I won't get into all that, but the story in the upstate with Ole Miss is something else and for those college football junkies like myself, fascinating stuff and someone has to get a grip on this. But yeah, I will let y' all out of here early. You know, tried to talk a little bit more to warm up, but that's all. We got a busy, fun weekend. And glad to cover it all with y'. All 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.
