Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, women's basketball is sweet 16 bound. Paul Manari is out as baseball coach and softball has a tough game. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:55] Okay.
[00:00:57] Welcome to episode 382 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. Hope you all had a great week. Gamecocks ready for another jam packed weekend. Wall to wall college basketball. Between the men's tournament, the women's tournament, pro sports are heating up. Happy opening day for anyone who observes Major league Baseball. Always just a, just a good day, opening day, sit down, got a day game on. Hopefully, you know, you're kind of putting your feet up, doing whatever. Just. It feels like America and it just feels right. I for one, am very excited for this weekend. Just beautiful weather, a lot of sports, just fantastic. And we're going to start the show off a little bit different here because there was some big, big news that broke about a week ago. At this point, of course, is like, it's. Of course, it's like as soon as I changed the format of the show to do weekly, we had like the Lamont Paris News and this. So if you didn't hear and you are not following me on social media or you're not just up to date with Gamecock athletics, whatever.
[00:02:14] Paul Manary is out as South Carolina baseball coach.
[00:02:19] The two parties have, you know, quote unquote, mutually agreed to part ways. But effectively he was shown the door after what has been an incredibly wacky, dysfunctional, bad tenure.
[00:02:37] Like his tenure is going to be a footnote in on. On his Wikipedia page. And it's going to be just a footnote in the legacy of South Carolina baseball. But it was a really bad, out of sync losing year and a half or so under him.
[00:02:57] Historically bad winning percentage in the sec. I think he won was it once against Clemson. And just weird relationships off the field with players, their families, the administration, the fans.
[00:03:13] Everything you heard about this guy and the way he was running the team was just out of sync, out of whack, outdated.
[00:03:22] And he's out. And the fans were calling for this. And I'm so glad that we were given this. So two, two fold here. I mean, hindsight's 20 20, but the hire itself was wacky. You know, it was Ray Tanner who I think was slowly becoming, or maybe not so slowly out of touch with modern college athletics.
[00:03:47] And then you had Paul who thought he was still in touch with the game, I think because he Watched a handful of games on his couch and he didn't understand how to relate to the modern player. He didn't understand how to deal with this, you know, new wave of recruiting and the scouting and just how good and deep the SEC is. And he was just over his head from the jump and he wanted to try and reclaim some glory of South Carolina. I think he wanted to scratch that competitive itch one more time.
[00:04:21] And he's in the introductory press conference saying that this program is not in the basement and that it's okay to have some expectations and all that's fine and dandy. It didn't work out so good on Jeremiah Donati for recognizing that this program, that is a source of pride for our fan base. Good for him for recognizing this and taking action mid season and named the right guy for the job, Monte Lee to be interim.
[00:04:53] Unless this team catches absolute fire, I don't think Monte is going to get the full time job. It's a shame that the stars didn't align to give him that shot. Someone like him with that passion for this program certainly deserves it. But I think we are at a point where we need entirely new blood leading this program and it's a, it's a rebuild and it's going to be a tall task. But I commend Jeremiah Donati for doing this mid season, not dragging this out. And it's a signal to the fans that he's watching, he's listening, and there is standards. There are standards, I should say. At South Carolina, a lot of people were upset by retaining Lamont Paris and thought that that was a sign of things to come with Donati maybe not taking a lot of action and giving coaches with poor track records long leashes and things like that. There were a lot of different financials at play with lp. With Monary, it was a little bit more straightforward. I think they're going to settle on some sort of a buyout. So everyone's happy and I just commend him for that.
[00:06:01] So here you have a, you know, respected coach who has a really good legacy, who came out of retirement, it didn't work out.
[00:06:14] He's shown the door.
[00:06:16] You would think that someone who has won at the highest level, who probably knew he was going out on a limb taking this job, who understands the expectations at a place like South Carolina, you would think that when it didn't work out and he's shown the door and apparently it's mutual, but you know, you know, it's not.
[00:06:41] You would think that you could go out with some grace. But boy, oh boy, did papa not do that.
[00:06:50] I mean, if you were un unsure about liking Paul Maneri or not, what he did this week and the interview he gave gives you every bit of evidence to put him on your shit list.
[00:07:04] He said that the fans and the expectations, everything.
[00:07:08] He said the fan base, administration, et cetera, were being impatient.
[00:07:13] And he said that he's not going to let some 80 game stint define his legacy.
[00:07:21] Are you kidding me?
[00:07:23] Like impatient? As I said before in his introductory press conference, he said this program is not in the doldrums and he's.
[00:07:35] How old is. He's in his late 70s, in his 80s even. He's an old man who takes this job. You don't take that job thinking it's going to take five plus years to get back to Omaha. You take that job because you think you can get the job done quickly.
[00:07:51] Your first year sucked, okay, whatever, right? You should have been fired. After that. You got given your second chance. If you're going to make that move and take that next step, it has to be this year, that second season.
[00:08:06] But you couldn't do it. Your recruiting was off, your scouting was off, the coaching was off, your in game management was off. Everything was off. You didn't know how to relate to the players.
[00:08:18] He could have said it was, you know, a privilege to, you know, accept the job from Ray, a guy who I competed against and have a lot of respect for. The South Carolina baseball program is historically one of the better ones in the sec.
[00:08:34] I had hoped to return them to heights. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. And I wish the program and the players and the fans nothing but the best. Thank you very much, I'm on my merry way. But no, he has too much pride to look himself in the mirror and say that, yeah, I failed.
[00:08:54] It's a modern game and the game has passed me by. Patience. When you hear you need patience, that is someone who does not understand modern college athletics.
[00:09:04] Yes, sometimes it does take a little bit of time, right?
[00:09:09] But with the transfer portal and nil and all that, you can turn things around quickly.
[00:09:15] He was not there. And don't forget, he inherited a roster that was capable of regionals. Right. Mark Kingston was fired because he couldn't get to the supers and beyond. Like this was a team that was winning, albeit not at the highest of levels and you know, super consistently.
[00:09:36] So don't tell me like, miss me with that bull crap, like, what a jerk.
[00:09:44] That's just the, that's that's the word for it. Just an absolute jerk to go out there and say the fans were impatient. Are you kidding me?
[00:09:55] We had every right to complain when you got smoked 22 to 6 in your last game, 22 runs when you gave up all your blown leads, losing to Clemson, getting swept at home, historically bad records in the sec. Like there's, there's not one thing you can point to in this era, if you will, and say that was a good call.
[00:10:23] There's just not insane to me. So Paul Monary is out and hopefully soon it becomes a distant memory and we just look back and laugh at it.
[00:10:34] I think Monte Lee is going to bring a little bit more bravado and energy to this team.
[00:10:43] You saw the win that they got Sunday night, his, you know, second game. But you know, as interim. But, you know, I think the dust was still settling in that first game and how excited he was in the clubhouse celebrating like that's the juice that we need. I'm going to get to game here in a second, but it's going to be interesting to see what Monte can do. And I think if nothing else, it gives fans a little bit more reason to tune in to show up to Founders. Like there's not this guy running the program who, you know, he doesn't love it like Monte Lee loves South Carolina baseball.
[00:11:20] And like I said, it's a, it's a bummer that the stars didn't align that he could take this thing on earlier full time, but that's just how, that's how the cookie crumbles. So, yeah, Paul Manneri out.
[00:11:36] But moving on to a midweek review here, just a couple of notes here. You had Tuesday men's golf finished second in the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate. Absolutely love to see that. And then on Wednesday evening, softball took on Clemson and took a tough loss there. Eight nothing for the ladies. Interesting year thus far for softball. Certainly a far cry from last year. Hopefully they can get it together here and have a bit of a late season push, but we'll see how that goes. And then turning back to baseball here they played on Tuesday night in Charlotte against North Carolina. A little neutral site. Action always fun. And as per usual, Charlotte was not kind to the Gamecocks. Went down in the first inning and it was, you know, bit of a pitcher's duel for most of that first part of the game there. But a six run seventh for the Tar Heels ultimately proved the difference there. So a tough midweek there for South Carolina.
[00:12:42] Connor Ciccoli got the Start and the loss. Some other highlights here. You know, there's only so much when you only score the one run but Jake Randolph 2 for 4 with one ribby. So you know, hopefully the guys are settling in now to Monty's teaching and everything like that as they are taking on Georgia in Athens this weekend looking for that also important road SEC win. And I think that would be, this would be a pretty great weekend to go out there and take one or two from the Bulldogs and hopefully this team again just shows some life down here. These, you know, however many weeks left in the season, but someone's whose season is still going on is women's basketball, y'. All. The ladies are sweet once again as they have advanced to the sweet 16 after an absolutely dominant first two rounds. For first round it was a no doubter.
[00:13:45] And then the second game it was, you know, if you'll remember, it was going to be a matchup between either Clemson or the other usc. Turned out it was the other usc and I have not seen a start like that in quite some time. The Gamecocks absolutely jumped on the Trojans and ended up winning 101 to 61 in the round of 32 to a Power 4 team. Absolutely amazing. So the ladies advance to the sweet 16 which is this weekend, Saturday evening, 5 o' clock tip off against the number four ranked or number four seeded, I should say Oklahoma Sooners. So talk about a storyline.
[00:14:30] A team that, you know, the Gamecocks had a little history with this season. A team that has presented to be a tough foe for the Gamecocks and Don Staley and company get a crack at redemption. So I'm very excited for this one. And throughout this tournament, the two games, it's been very impressive what we've seen. We've seen it clicking at the all levels. You know, we had some really strong post play and really, really great offensive rebounding against usc. The guards were playing incredibly well. Raven was doing her thing. You saw Maddie doing her thing. And it's, it's exactly that. You know, I, I've talked about it this year. Like we still have a very, very good team. I think what's missing from years past has been maybe we're not as at the exact level of depth that we're used to, but when you get the ladies who are normally playing a lot of minutes when they're really clicking, it's a very tough squad to go against. And not every team has that elite depth anyway. Like that's what really put us head and shoulders above the rest. So when you go against a lot of these teams who are built around, you know, one, two, three key players, when we can get our fourth, fifth or sixth player going, that's how you pull away like that. But I mean, that, that start against Southern Cal was absolutely electric. Colonial life was rocking. And my goodness, like, I'm so excited for the ladies and to see what they can do in the next round and we'll see what happens. You know, I don't want to get ahead of myself here, but the winner of this game will be taking on the winner of TCU and Virginia. Couple of upsets or, you know, an upset, rather. There have been a few upsets in the women's tournament. It's been a very interesting one to follow. Some close games, overtime games, been very exciting across the board here. But Virginia upset the number two seed, Iowa Hawkeyes, to make their appearance in the sweet 16. So the winner of our matchup will be taking on TCU and Virginia. So obviously it will be something that we will want to be tuning into. And if the Gamecocks do prevail, the seating holds, their game is set to be after ours. So then we will know. And then the Elite eight game will be taking place Monday, Monday evening, or I believe time is actually to be assigned. But those games tend to be afternoon, early evening, and from there you already know, you already know what lies beyond that. So not putting, not getting ahead of myself here because now this is really where the rubber meets the road. You know, you don't want to ever look ahead in these things, but you feel really confident as a one seed and a team that's been the number one team at times in the country, like making it through the first round.
[00:17:32] Yes, it was an interesting matchup with the other usc.
[00:17:35] They are a nine seed, like not as dominant as they have been in years past.
[00:17:41] So you felt pretty confident going into that one. I didn't know if it was going to be a 40 point win.
[00:17:46] And so now here you are, you're in the sweet 16. It's a kudos to this entire team. Like, that is no easy feat. And they certainly earned the number one seed, you know, albeit in that Sacramento region.
[00:17:59] And here you go, you know, a crack at the Elite Eight. And I mean against Oklahoma too. Like, it would be a really good storyline if the Gamecocks could end up on top of this one. And then, and then you're mathematically looking at, you know, lower seeds than you could have predicted. Right. The number two seed, Iowa Hawkeyes, losing so very exciting. Very exciting. And it's going to be a fun weekend, y'. All. But 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.
