Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, the women's basketball season comes to a tough end, and the baseball team struggles in the midweek. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:53] Okay.
[00:00:55] Welcome to episode 384 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. Hope you all are having a great week out there, Gamecocks. Hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend. Always a nice weekend to eat brunch and be with family, spend some time in reflection or whatever, and that we don't have to necessarily talk about basketball or anything along those lines. But, no, I do hope y' all are having a good week now. And it is a funny time now where, you know, all the college basketball is done. You got MLB ramping up. You have college baseball in full swing, which is kind of an interesting sentiment around Columbia, but really, like, that's it. Like, we're not in. We're not in the dog days of summer, but we're like in the dog days of spring. And it's early April, which is kind of an interesting feeling, but nonetheless, it's beautiful outside. We're happy, we're healthy, We're Gamecocks, and love, love it. All right, But I don't have a whole lot for y' all today. There really is not a whole lot to. To go over. It's been a slower week in terms of the midweek action. So I am just going to jump right into things here. And we're talking about women's basketball. It's the biggest event that's gone on in Gamecock Nation over these last couple of days. And before jumping to. To the headline here, let's talk about, you know, what, what this weekend meant for this program yet again, another Final Four, and just again, a amazing testament to the resilience of this team and to the coaching of Don Staley and the buy in from the players and everything like that. And this was a year where things didn't always come as easily as they had the last couple. And yet we found ourselves in familiar territory. And, you know, while the end result negates some of this good feelings, the fact of the matter is, like, Don Staley put on an absolute clinic Friday against UConn. Like, the Gamecocks were underdogs going into that game. And to end up on top, what is it, 12 points, winning 62 to 48 against the number one seed in the tournament, a team that was cruising throughout the year and was able to impose their will on all of their opponents. For the most part, South Carolina did the exact opposite. And it's Dawn Staley threw Geno and that entire team off of their game.
[00:03:36] And the efforts that you got collectively and individually from our team, it's. It's. It's championship pedigree. And it was an effort that certainly earned the right to play for the national championship. And, you know, this storyline has been beaten to death, but I at least have to talk about it, because it's been. You know, it's. It's a weekly show here. But what you saw at the end of that game with Geno was a guy who just didn't know how to. How to handle what just happened to him.
[00:04:10] And he had to scream and stomp his feet and make a scene. And then when pressed about it, wasn't man enough to say, you know what? I'm just a bad loser. They stuck it to us, and I didn't know how to handle that. He made up this false narrative about handshakes and ripped jerseys and whatever, because the fact is, Don Staley put this man in a locker, and our team stuck it to UConn in a way that no other team had this year. And if there's a little bit of a silver lining in this whole final Four weekend, I think it is that you did that.
[00:04:47] And I talked about it going into that game that is there a little bit of a revenge mindset? And then there's only so many players who were left over from that title game last year, but I think it's nice to be able to stick it to them and to once again, just reaffirm that we are one of the elite programs in women's college basketball. So that was really fun. You had all this momentum. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, I'm talking to my friends and family, like, I think at this point, South Carolina is going to win the national championship. Like, I felt quite confident that this team was just playing at a level that they could beat anybody, and I didn't want to jinx anything. I didn't. I didn't put nothing out there on social media. I just felt more confident in Sunday's game, in the national championship game then, frankly, I did Friday against UConn, and, boy, was I. And I think most of our fan base caught way off guard and by total surprise, as it was just really not the Gamecock's day as we fell in the national championship game yet again by a considerable margin, 79 to 51. So it's. Yeah, it's two years in a row where you have been really outmatched in the national championship game and look like winning national championships is incredibly hard. Like it's hard enough to get to the final Four. But when you are playing, excuse me, when you're playing a team that is a number one seed and that has recruited at a high level and is also rolling right, it's hard to go out there and to, and to win these things. So yeah, like you end up on the wrong side of this one. And yeah, it was just the things that had really carried South Carolina through this tournament. It felt like it was just turned on its head.
[00:06:49] Like, yeah, against TCU we had a little bit of a slower start, but for the most part just really able to get the offense going and clicking early in these games. You had a tough start to that game. And conversely, UCLA could shoot the thing from the frickin Artemis space shuttle and it would go in. So you're down immediately in a pretty considerable hole.
[00:07:15] You got outmatched on the glass, which had been an issue in some of those closer or losses that we've seen in South Carolina. That rebounding has been not a weakness, but you know, a struggle at times, a challenge at times. And then, you know, going into the half you're down, but you played better in the second quarter.
[00:07:40] I felt that we had a little bit of momentum carrying us and it was okay. Well, if you can make a run at this thing in the third, maybe it's, you know, close enough in the fourth where you feel like you can go on a run and, and get it done. And yeah, that certainly did not happen as the shots were not falling whatsoever in the third and again UCLA just kept on rolling. So it is what it is. You know, you never want to be on the wrong side of this one. It sucks to.
[00:08:11] It really sucks extra because you had all the spotlight on you on Friday only to then have a little bit of that carryover on Sunday and then you show up and you really got it handed to you. And it's a tough way to have some of these, you know, seniors go out and it's tough, you know, it's just, it's a crappy way to end the year. But again, like if we look at the silver linings of this all, like there you're still ended up in the national championship game in a year where you didn't have some of the things you normally did roster wise and you were still able to out coach and outplay the number one overall seed in the tournament. So if you want to find some takeaways from the weekend, it's, it's that.
[00:08:59] And Dawn Staley talked about how she loves the challenge that basketball creates. And it is, you know, I'm paraphrasing, of course, but it's, you know, just so great to get to this stage and to have a chance to win the title and to be playing in the last game of the season for any team.
[00:09:17] And it's, it's a building block and all the recruiting pitch is still there to come and be elite. You have some players who are going to be coming back on this roster who now have all that more experience and have that taste and desire to try and get the job done, and that's really all you can do. So it was a phenomenal season.
[00:09:37] It was a season that took some guts and grit and resilience and finding different ways to win. And I think this tournament run was a lot of fun.
[00:09:50] And I think a lot of players on the roster are going to benefit from this.
[00:09:56] And I think there's just still room for growth and development, which is all the more exciting.
[00:10:03] And I think that we're going to continue to recruit well. I think we're going to work the portal well. We're going to retool.
[00:10:11] And I think dawn is totally, is totally commanding the ship on this one. And I commend her for a fantastic season. I commend this whole team for a fantastic season. There's nothing to hang your head down on on this one. You know, it's. It's a crappy ending result, but it was a really, really good season. And you know, national title runner up, runner up stinks, but it's a good year. And, you know, we'll all process this and come next season, we're going to be ready to go. And guess what? We're going to be one of the teams to beat again.
[00:10:48] And we'll see where we end up at the end of next season. But great season. Shout out to the player. Shout out Don Staley. It was a great ride, but all right, let's move on here. We're moving on to baseball, which is going to have a lot more of the spotlight now that women's college basketball is done. And the guys were in action mid week Tuesday night against College of Charleston at home and took a tough loss. And that's coming on the heels of losing the last two games and ultimately the season, or excuse me, the series against Texas. Guys got the opening win, which was exciting there, but unfortunately we're not able to capitalize the rest. So yeah, going against College Charleston, it was a little bit of a back and forth game.
[00:11:39] Carolina came back in the mid innings, tied it up, but ultimately was two runs in the ninth of all innings for College of Charleston. That proved to be the difference. And yeah, that's, that's, you know, something that you never want to, never want to be on the wrong side of the Neo midweek game. And it's just been a continued struggle for, for the team in that department. Logan Prisco got the start here, didn't make it out of the first inning and then Parker Malott came in in relief for a couple of innings. It was Alex Philpot who got the loss though. Just, you know, it was a bit of a, bit of a bullpen game and ultimately Alex got the, was on the wrong end of this one here. Player highlights from this one. Tyler back went 2 for 2 with one RBI and Will Craddock 1 for 3 with one REI. So the guys will be looking to bounce back. If you are listening to this now, you're probably saying, well, what the heck, they, they have another game now. That's because the series against Mizzou got underway as I am recording this and it's gonna be one where the guys are traveling out to Como trying to have a complete series, a better series from start to finish in the sec. I was, you know, cruising, cruising some articles and tweets and whatnot, as one does, and it's been raised a couple of times that between Georgia and Texas, you're probably facing some of the better teams at least, you know, you have like a really good offense in Georgia, really good pitching staff in, in Texas. And I think the thinking could be in the clubhouse. While we've been battle tested to this point, shouldn't in theory, shouldn't in theory have anything harder, you know, moving forward, but we'll see. You know, I mean, again, I think I touched on it a little bit last episode at this point with where the team is at wins and losses wise. Monty Lee INTERIM HEAD COACH like, the expectations are rather low and it's really just hoping for the best and hoping for a good result and I would love for the team to find a way to win this series. If you can win a series on the road and then get some momentum and win a midweek game or something along those lines, then it would just be fun to see this team catch fire a little bit and you know, making our way through this SEC schedule. It's always going to be a grind.
[00:14:11] But in any given series, a team can get the best of you and that's what this team has to take on. It has to be the mentality of like, hey, like we're going to be a team that's not going to go away. We're going to grind at bats, we're not going to beat ourselves. And you know, we're going to be a team that can try and sneak up on you. So it's going to be really interesting to see how this team continues to progress through the month and then looking else on the schedule here. Softball Big series against Florida. Been an up and down year for softball, so it'd be nice for them to take it to the Gators. That series is at home starting Friday evening and then Saturday and Sunday afternoon as well. But like I said, didn't have a whole lot to cover. Certainly didn't have a whole lot of good news right to cover. So are going to wrap things up here a little early, so please follow along on social media, Twitter or X is Cox Gamecox. 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.
