Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] On this episode of Cox Talking Gamecocks, women's basketball has a massive win against Texas. Men's basketball comes up short again. And more notes from the transfer portal. Okay, here we go.
[00:00:55] Okay.
[00:00:57] Welcome to episode 370 of Cox Talking Gamecocks. I am your host, Tim Cox, where I will keep every episode from 1801 to 2001. Hope y' all had a great weekend. Gamecocks. A lot of action going across sports here this last weekend. Of course, a lot of compelling games from the last few days in Gamecock Nation, which, of course, I will go over. But my goodness, some fantastic football from the NFL. A lot of good college basketball going on around the country, and just a good weekend of sports. And hope y' all are ready to tackle this week here. If you have a short week, that's awesome. I'm right there with you.
[00:01:40] Maybe why there's a little bit of a delayed release with this episode, but if you are working today, I hope this next few minutes here gets you through your workday and, you know, spark up a debate with someone sports wise. Talk about Gamecocks, talk about the basketball team. What should we do with Lamont Paris? Talk about, what do you think's going on with the baseball program? How do you like the transfer portal poll from the football class? I don't know. Football class, football team, transfer portal class from the football team. There you go. Got it out right the second time there. But yeah, let's jump right into things here. I do have a weekend recap from around other sports here for y'. All. Only on Sunday, there was some action. Women's tennis, they beat Charleston Southern 4 nothing and also beat Coastal Carolina 4 nothing.
[00:02:29] And men's tennis beat Columbia. Not Columbia, South Carolina. Columbia, the Ivy League school in New York. They beat them 4 to 3. I certainly would hope so. SEC warm weather beating cold Ivy League in any sport. I hope that would be the case. So fantastic news from around our tennis programs. Love to see it. They'll be ramping things up, sort of timing things with the Australian Open as well. That's heating up there. That's. That's talking tennis on Cox, talking Gamecocks. But then looking at the football program here, I mean, it really is the.
[00:03:08] The news gift that just keeps on giving as Shane Beamer and company have really, really not slowed down in this transfer portal class. Although I do expect that to change over the next coming days. The add and drop date for academics is, I believe, on Tuesday.
[00:03:31] So that's pretty much the deadline you have as far as adding guys. You know, there's ways around it and things like that. So have a few updates for y'. All. Some of this might have been from Friday where I missed, you know I'd like just missed some some news updates between the recording and the the news dropping so running back Christian Clark from Texas committed to South Carolina. Young player had a nice outing in their bowl game.
[00:04:01] I think when you're looking at this running back room, I talked about it already where there's not that bona fide Rocket Sanders type of transfer, but you have a lot of good young talent that is primed to be developed by Stan Drayton, you know, but guys who have played and then you also have Howell and Fuller there, guys who you know what they have. Shane Beamer knows what they bring to the table. So I think it's a room that has a lot of upside and under some good coaching and in a good offensive scheme, one or two guys will certainly rise to the top and hopefully one or two guys develops into a bonafide RB1 at the SEC level.
[00:04:44] Beamer and company continuing to add to the offensive line with Armando Nieves coming from New Mexico State has played a lot of football primarily at the tackle position. So continuing to beef up the offensive line. Things that you absolutely love to see. Adding Max drag at the tight end position, which was a position of need. The Mike Smith drama. I alluded to it the other day he left Syracuse but not to come to South Carolina. He went to Ole Miss. So I don't know you had max drag there. Hasn't didn't put up a ton of stats. But he has played a good amount of football there so love to see that. And then defensive end Caleb Herrig, this was a big get from Tennessee. I think you can pencil him in to be starting opposite of Dylan Stewart. He is a junior, not really with the eye popping stats. Last year he had 14 total tackles with four sacks. He's long, he's twitchy, he's explosive and he brings that SEC experience to the line. So look, you're not going to find a guy with Dylan Stewart stats in the transfer portal. What you're looking for is someone who does have some production or who has the measurables, who has that experience and someone who you fit can someone who you think can fit into that group well and be coached up. And I think Caleb Herring ticks a lot of those boxes. When you remember Kyle Kennard, he came into South Carolina not with a lot of eye popping stats. I think he had six sacks the year before coming to South Carolina. And of those six, it was two or three of them came in one game.
[00:06:33] So it was that measurables and the experience that got you excited. You coached him up, and he had an incredible year at South Carolina. When you look at Caleb Herring, I think it's something similar where you're hoping that he can be a little bit more productive than he has in the past. If it's more than that, you love it. But he's a good player to play opposite of Dylan Stewart and someone who could come in and be right at the top of the depth chart. And then you have a guy like Julian Walker or George Wilson behind him. And there's a lot of young players in that group, too. But you needed to bring in someone who was experienced and older. And Caleb Herring checks that box. So really exciting stuff there from the football team. And of course, any other news, I will bring y' all up to speed over the next coming days, but. All right, turning our attention to actual games, talking basketball here. It was a weekend of hoops for the Gamecocks, starting with the men's basketball team here Saturday afternoon. The guys took on Auburn at Auburn and lost 71 to 67 as another late rally comes up short. And, yeah, it's just another tantalizingly close loss for this program.
[00:07:53] I don't really know what to say. You know, you can look at the turnovers and free throws as the thing you can point to in this game and say, well, you were below average there or, you know, above average in the turnovers. And if you played more to how you typically have this year, that could have been a difference. And I absolutely think so. I mean, especially the turnovers, limiting a lot of the offensive possessions that South Carolina had, cutting potential runs short.
[00:08:24] Carolina, you know, we had been pretty good in terms of turnovers, not in this game and free throws. I was surprised to see that South Carolina is towards the top of the league in free throw percentage, but in this game fell pretty noticeable below that mark. And those two things, that's a recipe for disaster. If you're typically good in those, you're just going to handicap yourself. And, you know, we're here yet again where the Gamecocks were within striking distance for a lot of this game. You know, I mean, Auburn is not the Auburn from a couple of years ago. You know, Bruce Pearl's gone. They had a very similar record to South Carolina. If not. If not the same record even going into this game, I think they have more talent on the roster. You know, they have a more typical SEC roster build wise, but nonetheless they're not having a great year.
[00:09:26] So we were right back and forth with them. You know, it really wasn't this, hey, Auburn was ahead a lot and Carolina surges at the end and closes the gap. This was pretty close throughout.
[00:09:38] Auburn opened things up a little bit in that second half, but able to close the gap. And you were right there, you know, at the end. You know, you have a couple of free throws late, Michi hits the 31 possession game type deal, but it's just too little too late. And it's just South Carolina has not been in a position of strength in these games.
[00:10:02] You know, minus. You know, there's the LSU game where we were winning and you held on.
[00:10:08] There's just not moments or at least there's not these extended periods of time where this basketball team is in control. It's always chasing or it's always just like, oh my gosh, like we have to just stop this furious rally. It's just not quite there. So unfortunately you're coming up just short in this one and who knows, it would have been a great road win, but unfortunately you came up short here. Some player highlights here. Meeche Johnson with 17 points, Mike with 13 points, Kobe Knox with 12 and Elijah Strong with 10. So you got some pretty good contributions, right?
[00:10:51] But unfortunately it was not enough.
[00:10:55] The men's next game is Tuesday night against oklahoma. Oklahoma is 117 on the year. So again, a team that is right there record wise with South Carolina, on paper, this should be a close game. On paper, this is a winnable game. Especially you're talking about being at home.
[00:11:16] Crow to the game in this one. Hit your free throws.
[00:11:19] You know, I'm not going to get up here and say you got to hit your three pointers because that seems to come and go with South Carolina.
[00:11:27] Limit the turnovers, of course, right? But picking your poison with this one and hit your free throws. Because when you're talking about a game that feels like it could be close, that's going to make a difference. And if you can get to the line and generate offense that way to make up for any deficiencies you may have in the post or if you do have an off night, shooting the three, take your three, take your free throws and just stay in it that way, generate the offense that way, get to the line.
[00:11:55] So it's going to be a good one to see. And again, I've talked about it with this program right now, at least I don't think we're like, you know, total basement dwellers. I don't think we're competing with the top half of the league, but there's certainly going to be games that South Carolina is going to be in. And you saw that against Auburn, and I think you're going to see it against Oklahoma.
[00:12:19] But it's a question of can you get over the hump in those games?
[00:12:23] And so you have to do the little things, right, like the turnovers, like the free throws, you know, so let's see.
[00:12:32] They know that would be a nice one there, and you take it from there. But you need to start winning some of these close games. You have to find a way to dig deep, and you have to find that within you. And you win a couple of these close ones and, you know, you can feel a little bit better about this squad.
[00:12:47] But then looking at women's basketball here, I need to go back. I need to go back in time, and we have to talk about Thursday's game. You know, it's. It's tricky with the recording schedule and things like that. I feel bad I wasn't able to talk about this in real time. I certainly posted some stuff on social media, but the ladies had a top five matchup against Texas at home and got a massive win, 68 to 65. Colonial life was rocking. I mean, both teams, frankly, didn't look like they played their A game, but by the end of this one, I felt like I watched the championship game just with how intense it was. I mean, both teams were playing hard, you know, playing so hard, digging deep, back and forth, trading blows again. Crowd was electric. CLA is a freaking fortress. And then you had these big time clutch moments for the Gamecocks that it just felt like March. It did.
[00:13:50] And you were, you were looking around, you're like, man, like, here we go.
[00:13:55] Like, this team being gritty and sticking this one out and finding a big win is massive. I mean, that Medina 3 sent the place into a frenzy. Felt so good for her to hit that shot. And really from that moment, you just felt like Carolina was not going to lose this one. Raven Johnson late in the game, Dagger.
[00:14:21] And it was. This is a win that I think can catapult this team through the rest of the year. I mean, really, you know, and it, it just speaks a lot to the, to the makeup of this team. And I think it's this type of game where you see the influence of Don Staley. You know, Texas comes out and in that first quarter, Carolina's down and this is, this was the team that earlier in the year had South Carolina's number. These teams have had a lot of back and forth games. There's history here.
[00:14:54] But then the Gamecocks stayed the course. Don Staley rallied the troops. He had a fantastic run to go into the, into the halftime feeling good.
[00:15:04] Third quarter's, you know, that that whole second half was just back and forth. And then late in the game, it felt like South Carolina's defense was just not giving Texas a chance to breathe, really. And again, you get a couple of these clutch shots from players that you want them from. You know, obviously Medina shooting threes, it's not, you know, part of that repertoire. But, but, but Don Staley spoke to it and she said, you know, we want our bigs to shoot, to be able to shoot threes. You know, we, we feel comfortable with it. We, we practiced it. She was wide open. Medina, you know, said, I have been working on that shot. I was open. I took it. Bang. Raven late in the game, doing all sorts of things, you know, and, and, and when you look at the box score here, I'm, I'm just going to go. Joyce, Tessa, Tania, Raven, Medina, all in double figures. So it was really spreading the love. No one really went off, right. Joyce led the way with 14.
[00:16:00] Tessa had a couple of big shots, she had 13. But it was really spreading the love. And that is what has been a calling card for South Carolina in the past, that it was deep, right?
[00:16:11] So a fantastic win and again one that I think really will catapult this team for the next couple of weeks and really through the rest of the year.
[00:16:20] Then on Sunday, the ladies took on coppin State and one handedly 90 48. It felt like a much needed reprieve after Thursday night. Alicia Turnabies Turnabees got her first points as a Gamecock in this one. And her development over the next couple of weeks will really be something to keep an eye on and really to be excited about. For those of y' all who don't know, Alicia is a French national and she is committed to the Gamecock. She is on Carolina's team now. There was some delay of her getting on campus with finishing up things in France, playing for the national team and whatnot, but she is excited to be in South Carolina. I'm excited as a fan to wash her. She brings a lot to the table, brings some size and athleticism that frankly South Carolina could need. But of course you have to get up to speed, you know, she's a young player and get used to college life. Get used to life in the sec. So keep an eye on Tonnebees. Alele Gamecock right? Very exciting here, but next game for the ladies is Thursday night also against Oklahoma. My crow to the game is get Tornaby some good minutes.
[00:17:29] You know, you feel like the rest of the roster is cooking right now. You feel that the rest of the roster should be able to handle things against Oklahoma. Alicia is a player who can certainly come off the bench and be an impact player for you later in the year. So let's get her some good minutes here.
[00:17:45] But with that, that wraps up this episode. Please follow me 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.
